According to Umesh Chhika, BME’s general manager for Asia Pacific and strategic projects, Indonesia’s vast opencast coal industry still overwhelmingly uses ammonium nitrate and fuel oil – or ANFO – as its primary blasting medium.
Explosives leader BME has raised the bar with a record blast at Zambia’s Kansanshi mine in March, detonating 4,141 electronic delay detonation (EDDs) in a single blast in the operation’s north-west pit.
28 year old Refiloe Kekana, a fully qualified mining engineer and explosives researcher at BME, is proving that women can make significant contributions towards the mining sector’s operational advancement – not only at boardroom level, but at the coal face.
As part of its modernisation strategy, Anglo American Platinum’s Tumela Mine has partnered with blasting firm BME in a pioneering initiative to introduce emulsion explosives underground at its mine near Thabazimbi in Limpopo province.
Generational thinking – rather than focusing only on quarter-to-quarter profitability – is key to seeing out the current commodity slump and growing into Africa’s mining future.
A dedicated ‘blasting science’ team – including experts in engineering, physics, mathematics and geology – has become a key driver of innovation in BME, according to blasting technology director Tony Rorke.
