# WAK - WA Kaolin



## System (23 October 2020)

WA Kaolin is a mineral extraction and processing company and is the sole owner of the Wickepin Kaolin Project, located in the township of Wickepin, 220 km south-east of Perth, Western Australia. 

The Project, which is one of the largest known remaining kaolin premium primary resources in the world, contains an Ore Reserve of 30.5 million tonnes, a Mineral Resource (reported in 2019) of 109.1 million tonnes and a Mineral  Resource  (reported in 2017)  of  644.5 million tonnes of high-grade premium kaolinised granite.

WA Kaolin has invested approximately $42 million in acquiring the Project in 1999 from Rio Tinto, which included the tenements and all associated engineering and feasibility studies, and developing the foundations for commercialising the Project.  

WA Kaolin has, as part of its work, undertaken trial mining and processing leading to it having developed a dry processing method (K99 Process) at its plant in Kwinana, which together with the high-grade Wickepin kaolin resource, produces an ultra-bright, high-quality kaolin product at a low cost, in comparison to other methods which   rely on chemical bleaching and multiple wet mechanical and magnetic separation methods. 

The Kwinana plant has a capacity of up to 5 tonnes per hour and is currently operating on a 16 hour per day, 5 day per week roster. 

It is anticipated that WAK will list on the ASX during November 2020.









						WA Kaolin Limited - Home
					

About WA Kaolin is an ASX-listed kaolin production company which holds the Wickepin Kaolin Project, 220km south-east of Perth, Western Australia. The Company commissioned the Wickepin Processing Plant in September 2022 ahead of commencing a two-stage ramp up of production to 400,000 tonnes per...




					www.wakaolin.com.au


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## Dona Ferentes (11 November 2020)

ASX Upcoming floats says listing 27 Nov








						Upcoming floats and listings
					

A complete list of upcoming floats and listings on ASX




					www2.asx.com.au


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## Garpal Gumnut (11 November 2020)

Dona Ferentes said:


> ASX Upcoming floats says listing 27 Nov
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One to watch. Kaolin seems quite in demand.

gg


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## Dona Ferentes (26 November 2020)

listed today. _Comme d'hab, _ a flurry then quiescence, consolidating to a natural level ... above the 20c IPO price, so that is an endorsement for the faithful.
















						WA Kaolin commences trading at a premium after heavily subscribed IPO
					

WA Kaolin (ASX: WAK) began its journey on the bourse today, offering investors exposure to its kaolin operation and plans on becoming a “globally significant” producer to meet mounting market demand.




					smallcaps.com.au
				




_" ...As part of its market expansion strategy, WA Kaolin said it will be targeting customers across paper and plasterboard, ceramics, fibreglass, pains and coatings, plastics, rubber, pharmaceuticals and medicine, cosmetics, concrete and agriculture sectors to potentially secure more offtake agreements._

_The company is looking at entering the premium paper and packaging market by constructing additional wet processing facilities. Approvals for this product have already been secured with major producers in China, Japan and Korea. Further research and development as well as market testing of this products will be undertaken.

Meanwhile in the high-value, high purity alumina space, WA Kaolin noted it will continue monitoring the industry and make a move to enter the market “at the appropriate time”.

Another potential market that WA Kaolin is evaluating is in *metakaolin *production. The company plans to commercialise its technology for generating metakaolin at its Kwinana pilot plant. __Metakaolin is used in geopolymer cements that do not require the extremely high temperature that is critical in the Portland process.  WA Kaolin estimates geopolymer cements could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 80%."_


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## Trav. (24 January 2021)

It is good to see a project get going this quick, as often there is a lot of talk and no action but maybe one to watch


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## The Triangle (4 March 2021)

Trav. said:


> It is good to see a project get going this quick, as often there is a lot of talk and no action but maybe one to watch
> 
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There has been so much potash hype that I'm surprised another industrial cousin - kaolin has remained reasonably hidden from the market view.  At 17 cents this is very interesting.   All the hard yards are done - exploration, permitting, funding.  WAK is building and expanding as we speak.   Now there is risk of cost blowouts and schedule blowouts in the construction stage but what I like is that WAK is very close to Perth (i.e no fifo).  If there's a problem, no need to wait on a charter plane or 3 days for a road train.   If it goes to plan WAK is trading on about 3.7x forward earnings (or 40% of project NPV) and positive cashflow would be year 2 - Not a bad risk reward.     Expansion is a possibility and (if you believe them) is bolt-on.  The kaolin deposit is very high grade and one of the better deposits around.  

Also the board looks very good.  (I know none of them) but there's a good mix, mining engineers, geologists, chemists, accountants.  Actual skill diversity and they've sunk a lot of their own money in to the company.  

I'm usually reasonably skeptical of mining projects, so to balance my optimism I'll point out that this has dropped below the IPO of 20 cents from only a few months ago. Not sure why - but that's not usually a good thing.


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## The Triangle (12 July 2021)

So far WAK has gone well.  No hint of the project or mine being delayed, by all accounts everything is going to schedule.   I'll note that there are a about 125 million options out there @ 25 cents, and a few more at 35 cents - so success will certainly cap the SP a little by adding dilution (but also funding) - which is fine by me.  Not all shares need to be a potential 10-20 bagger.  2-3 is good enough!

They still have another 5-6 months of commissioning and then a little time after that to confirm production economics.   It's rare to see a project not have problems.  But I think this is what happens when you see people who bring a privately held project to the market - they tend to do it right.   To me - this is a proper skin in the game company.


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## Dona Ferentes (12 July 2021)

The Triangle said:


> I'm usually reasonably skeptical of mining projects, so to balance my optimism I'll point out that this has dropped below the IPO of 20 cents from only a few months ago. Not sure why - but that's not usually a good thing.



A good barometer... WAK sits at the top of my HPA watchlist, and I've noted IPO then fall,,,, and now the rise. Without doing any buying, but hey, at least such easily tracked price action allows for investigation..  Thanks for yr posts @The Triangle


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## The Triangle (8 February 2022)

Hmm.  Looks like a capital raising at 18 cents.  Not entirely surprising as it was more or less flagged in the quarterly as they only had 2 mill left - but Its still disappointing to see for the 1000th time another IPO where the initial raising is not enough to get things going and another raising is needed below the IPO price.  I would have preferred debt funding in this case - it increases risk but also shows confidence in the project economics.   Certainly my confidence is lower today than it was a few months ago.  Once I hit the 12 month hold I may just dump these shares.   The SPP if offered will be small and of no interest to me.

This is and always will be the problem with WA.  brokers are constantly pushing capital raisings.  If you let them happen you're much more likely to get yourself more board seats.  Its a vicious incestuous cycle and we see it play out every day, month, and year, with the same top 20s, the same brokers, the same directors, the same power players.

I'm sure this CR will be played as an 'advance to stage 2' raising.


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## The Triangle (18 May 2022)

Well after just over a year of holding I'm now out of WAK and more or less shifted(ing) the money to ORR since goldies started getting a hammering this month. 

May consider reinvesting in the future - however they are clearly having issues and delays (as are everyone) and I think this is a very risky time to be holding a junior in construction.    I'm not sure how they can continually say they are on budget and time when they have not followed the original project timelines published over a year ago.  Below is from an announcement today and the screenshot below is from a March 2021 presentation...  They were supposed to be finished and into steady state production months ago.  

_Installation of all Stage 1 processing plant at WA Kaolin’s Wickepin Kaolin Project in Western Australia is *now complete and on budget*. Dry commissioning is well underway.  _
_COVID 19 has *hampered materials delivery* and *caused severe shortages of labour*.  _
_The result is a *short-term delay *in our forecast of achieving full nameplate capacity._
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## Dona Ferentes (28 September 2022)

Dona Ferentes said:


> A good barometer... WAK sits at the top of my HPA watchlist, and I've noted IPO then fall,,,, and now the rise. Without doing any buying,




Since listing in late 2020, WAK has been in a narrow range. I have taken the view that Kaolin/ HPA is widespread, especially in WA, and too commonly found for any player to claim a 'unique market advantage', hence I will not take any position amongst the hopefuls. Am not sure the recent incremental lift, on no news other than shuffling at board level, means anything:


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