Jeff, I seemed to have found a solution!
The raw files are kept on the company server.
I tried what you suggested, 60 seconds of footage and nothing else.
Since what I was attempting to export was also similar, that didn’t make much of a difference.
So I got a GTX1080 PHOENIX 8GB GDDR5X 256bit on my system and put the same clip on export and worked perfectly fine. Exported in less than 2 minutes now!
I really hope this lasts and is not just a temporary fix.