This post reflects my thoughts that arose when I read the...

This post reflects my thoughts that arose when I read the Capital Raising Presentation announced on 1 May 2024.

Comment on K99F

Years ago, WAK offered two products for the fibreglass subsector – one being less beneficiated than the other. The major distributor (Stanco), reflecting the preference of its customers, plumbed for the latter, which was at the fine-end of the PSD that the K99 plant was designed to produce. That K99F product was ordered and produced using the pilot plant, because there was a market for it at a viable price. However, to enter the high-volume market, WAK now has to produce a finer-grained product – hence the need for a secondary classifier.

WAK is unsure if it needs one or two additional classifiers, but it ordered two, thinking that if one additional classifier sufficed, the second one ordered can be used for Stage 2, which will be when WAK installs a second K99 plant. One can take that to mean that WAK expects it can can expand sales to require the second plant relatively soon (a year or so hence).

Comment on K99C

Where the purpose for which kaolin is used requires it to be in a slurry, or in a “slip”, or in a paste, good fluidity at high solid levels is preferred. However, achieving fluidity by using finer-grained kaolin does not suit slip casting sanitaryware, where quick drainage of water using gas pressure is desired to hasten production. The Capital Raising Presentation states:

• “Promote coarser grades to ceramic and other markets”
• “Especially exploiting all applications that use coarser kaolin and in particular rolling out modified ceramic grades with improved plasticity”
• “In the interim, WAK will fund development in other market sectors such as paint, ceramics and paper and in any other applications where coarser product can be used”
• “Growth in sales of coarser and engineered kaolin to the ceramics industry will lay the basis for future expansion”

The foregoing points imply that WAK, or a partner in China, will use using non-milling ways to ameliorate viscosity – for example, adding electrolytes like sodium silicate.

When making porcelain wall tiles, I am uncertain if a viable outcome can be economically achieved (as opposed to technically achieved) using high-energy milling to reduce grain size, and high-energy mixing to improve dispersion to allow high-solids load percentages of a fluid mixture. Pressure applied to steel plates used to express water from commercial porcelain tile paste can be much greater than pressurised gas can deliver (called hydrostatic pressure) for slip casting. The porcelain tile paste would include ball clay, feldspar and silica, and the word “paste” suggests minimal water. It also suggests to me that a distributor with facilities to blend a tile paste is the best path that WAK can take to sell kaolin.

Other Products

I excluded commenting on kaolin products for sectors like paper and paint, because I thought that would require more effort than is warranted for now.