Spot on, IMO. Stanco really wants K99F, because all K99 products...

Spot on, IMO.

Stanco really wants K99F, because all K99 products have a high-purity kaolin. It is the particle-size distribution that is the problem, and Stanco would know enough about kaolin beneficiation to understand what needs to be done to get K99F to meet a specified top cut and size distribution. WAK has not Announced what insiders, including Stanco, know.

Anyhow, if the new classifier equipment allows WAK to produce saleable K99F at a viable price, all should pan out well. I have always held that if WAK can profitably produce K99F, everything else will be a breeze. Stanco specialises in continuous filament fibreglass, but it has customers in other sectors, so Stanco as a 15% owner of WAK should be inclined help WAK to get out of the poo.

Management believes that it has a unique solution to producing delaminated kaolin for paper that uses K99 as feedstock for a delamination process, which must be a wet process. I wonder if they should not consider ultrafine powder like K99F, to also be handled via an add-on step. It is not unknown for air classifier mills to have a secondary classifier focused on a range of tight specifications. With luck WAK may announce what we need to know.