COMMODITY SPOTLIGHT
THE ALLURE OF HALLOYSITE-KAOLIN OFT-MISUNDERSTOOD, HALLOYSITE-KAOLIN HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BE A LUCRATIVE COMMODITY IF A COMPANY FINDS THE RIGHT BALANCE AND UNDERSTANDS THE COMPLEXITY OF ITS MARKETPLACE.
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alloysite-kaolin is an intriguing commodity. Considered the most researched clay mineral in the world, its potential is largely untapped in Australia. However, there are a handful of emerging Australian companies staking their claim as future producers of the versatile industrial product. Andromeda Metals is the most advanced of those, a company racing towards establishing its Great White kaolin joint venture project on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. Working alongside Minotaur Exploration, Andromeda has overcome a number of obstacles to be where it is today and still has objectives to tick off before it can become a producer, however the early signs all point in the right direction. Much of that can be put down to the expertise of Andromeda general manager James Marsh, whose family has been keenly involved in kaolin over the years. After working in Cornwall, United Kingdom, where kaolin was first mined in the 1700s, Marsh moved Down Under in 2002 and steadily began lifting the profile of halloysitekaolin, a high-value derivative of kaolin which had seldom been explored in Australia up until that point. This led him to join Andromeda
in 2018, which has grown from a $3-4 million company when he started, to one with a market capitalisation of more than $400 million. While kaolin has long been used in the filling and coating of paper, its quality for this purpose is lessened when it’s discovered alongside the presence of halloysite. Halloysite disrupts kaolin’s paper aspirations and can be difficult to identify due to its miniscule size. However, it’s considered a profitable resource when used in other applications. Andromeda sees a potential to commercialise halloysite in industries such as construction, agriculture, healthcare, cosmetics and nanotechnology. The company’s offtake partnerships
indicate Andromeda has also proven halloysite’s capability in ceramics. Andromeda has executed an agreement with Japanese porcelain manufacturer Plantan Yamada for its Great White CRM product, which will see the company purchase 5000 tonnes per annum of halloysite-kaolin at $700 per tonne. Marsh says his relationships in the field gave Andromeda an advantage in inking this deal. “We chose ceramics first because we knew it had the halloysite which is where it’s highly valued and luckily with my background – I’ve been selling this stuff for 30-odd years – I’ve got a mass list of customers that I’ve been involved with over the years,” he says. “So that gave us a huge head start,
HALLOYSITE-KAOLIN IS A DIFFICULT PRODUCT TO COMMERCIALISE.
HALLOYSITE-KAOLIN IS A HIGHVALUE DERIVATIVE OF KAOLIN.
AUSTRALIANMINING
24
FEBRUARY 2022
plus I knew exactly why these buyers would value it and how much it was worth for them because they would never tell you that themselves.” Marsh says much of halloysitekaolin’s complexity comes down to selling the product. It’s a bit of a catch-22 – the commodity’s many unique uses and applications render it an intricate product to market. “It’s a very hard material to market because there’s no index pricing for this stuff. In China alone, there’s over 10,000 users of this material and they’ve all got their own different formulations, their own processes, their own people who work different ways,” Marsh says. “You also don’t talk to the buyers, you talk to the technical people and say, ‘here’s our product, this is its chemistry, this is its particle size, this is how it’s going to perform, this is how to use it in your application’ and convince them how they can use it.” Andromeda has also established an offtake partnership with Jiangsu Mineral Sources International Trading Co for its Great White PRM product. This will see the Chinese commodity trading house purchase 70,000 tonnes per annum of Andromeda’s kaolin product for more than $700 per tonne to be used in the coatings and polymers market. This is distinct from the halloysite-kaolin product to be sold to Plantan Yamada. With Great White’s potential,
