Raw Materials Sites

Cost to Operate: β 7,500 + 1 Extraction Tool per day (per 100ft²)

Expansion: Purchase desired size, can't be expanded.

Conversion: No, but will become vacant land when emptied.

Other Factors:

Supply: Part of original purchase, can't be replenished.
Inherent Quality: Selected at time of purchase, adds to quality appeal.

Raw Materials are products that are not made, but rather extracted from the land itself.
None of the Raw Materials are sold directly in stores. They can only be sold to other companies or used in farming and manufacturing.
Each Raw Materials Site comes with a pre-set supply of the product. When all of those are extracted, what's left is an empty plot of Standard property. It can be built on or sold back to the system to make room for another Raw site.

Purchasing

When choosing a Raw Materials Site from the Construction link, you'll be taken to an interface for Raw Exploration, SSC. This is a system-run company whose job is to locate suitable properties and sell them to you.
Because they rely on local finds, not every product is available near every city. Products that can't be extracted locally must be transported in from other cities (or purchased from someone who has done so).
Raw Materials sites can be purchased immediately in any desired size. Larger sizes extract faster, but at diminishing rates, so it's advised not to purchase more than you need.
Numerous choices for supply will be offered. The larger the supply the more expensive the land, but the longer it can go before needing to be replaced.
No building materials are required for these purchases.

When purchasing, you will be asked if you want the supply to be of above-average quality. Each point added here will translate into an extra Quality Appeal point once the material is extracted.
Each point of Inherent Quality costs 20% more for the price of the materials. This is multiplicative, not additive, so 4 points cause the material to be 107.36% more expensive.
The Inherent Quality is added to any applied research to get the resulting product's Quality Appeal.
Unlike production at Farms and Factories, the Quality Appeal of raw product will not deteriorate while extraction is ongoing. However, once taken from the site and loaded in the warehouse, they will experience quality decay the same as every other product.

In order to operate, each Raw Materials site requires Extraction Tools. These are used up at the rate of 1 tool per day per 100ft².
Because Raw Materials don't require inputs like other products, they don't have recipes. Instead research will always contribute 33% to a raw product's Quality Appeal, with the other 67% coming from the quality of the Extraction Tools.
If extraction is cancelled all unused fees will be refunded, but applied Extraction Tools will not be returned.