At
https://www.jtsi.wa.gov.au/docs/def...library/prospect_march-may-2007.pdf?sfvrsn=11 there is an old information piece on WAK's aims to exploit the Wickepin kaolin resource, and you can read that the focus was then on the wet-processed product required by the paper sector.
What went wrong? The focus was on wet-processed kaolin to be transported by rail from Wedin, but the railway line was closed in 2013. Also, the circa 25K slurry pipe to Wedin would cost more than WA kaolin was prepared to invest.
How did WA Kaolin react. Management focussed on developing a dry-processing technology. Originally 90% purity was achieved, and called K90. Since then 99% purity has been achieved as a sustainable target, so the product was renamed K99, and produced via a pilot plant that allowed WA Kaolin to test the market and solicit buyers' interest. Also, there emerged the probability of the rail link being reconnected, which has been announced by the WA Government to happen in 2025, but Andrew Sorrensen conservatively has pencilled in 2026.
Further, WAK has changed its thinking, and now plans to use K99 kaolin as the feedstock for wet-processed kaolin. That makes the slurry to be pumped to Wedin much easier to do, and hence cheaper than the original plan. The dry-processed K99 is an exportable product, and has been exported in limited quantity for years, and it should soon be moving at the production capacity of the Stage 1 plant. WAK can live with delaying the export of wet-processed kaolin, so getting into wet-processing is a commercial issue, but the demand and the premium price should ensure that WAK uses some K99 kaolin as feedstock for the wet-processed product.
To make kaolin slurry non-viscous requires some doing, as you can see at
https://patents.justia.com/patent/6156284 and similar sources (Google kaolin patent viscous). I assume that WAK's process is simpler, because it is specific to Wickepin ore, but I do not recall that WAK has published anything on this point, . Until the company has got the wet-process right, and patented it, Management may prefer to remain silent.
I only wrote this to give myself something to do tonight, and I want to know enough about kaolin to be able to talk intelligently to Andrew when the time is ripe.
