When WAK mentioned a delegation of European and Asian kaolin buyers had visited the Wickepin mine site, it struck me as being odd, because I thought of the delegates being from disparate entities, and I could not imagine Management would have the time and inclination to organise a delegation when there were sufficient alternative issues to resolve. I now think that the delegates could have been linked to a common global kaolin business, and the initiative came from the buying side.
When Andrew Sorensen mentioned opening a sales office in Asia, I noted with interest that he said “Asia” and not East Asia. Also there were words to the effect that WAK had widened the gography to which it would sell product, and the fact that Ukrainian and Russian kaolin is imported by many Asian countries, including the Indian sub-continent, inclined me to think that it was more logical for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to look to an Australian source of kaolin than American sources (Brazil and the USA).
When Andrew mentioned opening a sales office in Asia staffed with ceramics experts, two thoughts popped to mind. One was that word “Asia” rather than "East Asia". The other was that I thought that a major kaolin distributor like Imerys or Sibelco had a hand in this, perhaps with a team in Asia who were previously focused on marketing European kaolin, or blends containing it. Both Imerys and Sibelco have kaolin sources in Ukraine and Russia that are now not producing product, and sales outlets in Asia that want the kaolin.
When WAK announced that Petsy Loo had been appointed, my first thought was that “Petsy” was an unlikely name, so I googled it and found a Patsy Lee Loo with 14+ years experience with Sibelco in Malaysia. Then delving into Sibelco told me that it has sourcing, blending and sales operations all over Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and it sells a ceramics blend called Sandblend (loosely speaking, a mixture of kaolin, ball clay, silica sand and feldspar). Basically, Sibelco is into silicates, and kaolin is simply one of the silicares. Sibelcos two major market sectors are glass and ceramics, which are WAK's two major market sectors.
Sibelco stated life in 1872 by monetising dredging sand, and it has substantially simply added other silicates like ball clay, bentonite, feldspar, kaolin and talc to its bag of tricks. If any entity can monetise the 50% of WAK's kaolinised granite that is silca sand, it would be Sibelco. In fact, if WAK left the silica sand in its K99C product, all that would need be added to suit the pressurecast ceramic subsector is ball clay and feldspar. It is interesting that the shipment that WAK was so chuffed to receive within three months of first contact went to South Korea, a country that takes about 50% of Australia's export of silica sand, of which some 600,000 tonnes is exported via Kwinana annually. The Koreans would tolerate a lot of silica sand in their kaolin imports, I would think.
Summary – there may be something significant (transforming even) in the offing in relationship to WAK and Sibelco. Warning – these are the fictions of an idle mind of a Micawberish bent, so Google the facts and make up your own mind.
WAK Price at posting:
14.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
