Three quick observations.
1) Silver is wanted for terraforming Harris, using silver nitrate. Not sure what an antiseptic would do for a barren planet, but hey, we got Hyperdrives, so I'm happy with the science ingame
2) Waterloo could very well be a dropoff point for the ore. Little transports could then take them to the major industries planetside. (Although I think NL is only a middle-high class bureaucratic haven)
3) Southampton could very well be doing the mix of H3 + Deuterium that is necessary for widely used H-Fuel.
And now, for the opinion post:
Things are cool now, you get to make big chain ore transportation marathons throughout Sirius thanks to the way the ore buy/sell locations are laid out.
Seeing your joining date, and not meaning any offence, you should know by now to take this game not for face value, but as a realistic caricature of what a space Sim would be.
EDIT: They were *three* little observations after all
