BME’s Ammonia supply is diversified in that it is sourced both locally and internationally, ensuring excellent security of supply. The internationally sourced ammonia is stored in an industry-shared facility in Richards Bay and is transported via Omnia’s own fleet, consisting of 145 specialised ammonia rail tankers to the Omnia Sasolburg nitric acid facility. The ammonia is then converted into nitric acid and then into ammonium nitrate which is used in the production of fertilizers and explosives.
BME, through Omnia, has 2 Nitric acid facilities in Sasolburg South Africa. The most recent plant was commissioned in 2012 and is the newest and largest Nitric Acid facility in Africa which is able to produce 1000 tons per day. The new Nitric Acid complex is designed to exacting world-class and ‘green’ standards. Omnia has installed the EnviNOx emissions mitigation technology at both its old and new Nitric Acid facilities, which eliminates 98% of greenhouse gas emissions which in turn generates over 40% of Southern Africa’s carbon credits. The nitric acid is then converted into ammonium nitrate which is used in the production of fertilizers and explosives.
PGAN (Porous Granular Ammonium Nitrate) or also commonly known as "low density Ammonium Nitrate". The PGAN technology was developed and designed in-house by Omnia process engineers and was scaled-up from experience gained on a pilot plant. Construction started in 2010 with completion early 2012.
A key ingredient that enables superior stability of all our Emulsion explosives. To ensure availability of this material, BME has an in-house emulsifier plant.
BME’s Dryden Innovex manufacturing plant is situated 5 km outside of Delmas, Mpumalanga. Our second large emulsion plant is located at Losberg. The facilities have recently upgraded to semi-automated plants, which supply both local and international customers with our explosives emulsion. The Dryden facility also includes a used oil purification plant, which cleans potentially environmentally damaging used oil for use as a raw material in the Innovex manufacturing process. Both processes are operated to the most stringent of standards to ensure the manufacture of quality emulsion for our customers.
BME Emulsion Plants are designed to be mobile, robust and user friendly, making them ideally suited for the mining environment. All plants are divided into two primary modules, steam generation to provide heat for the process and the production module, which both generates the base solution from dry raw materials and manufactures the emulsion.
BME has a modern cartridged emulsion manufacturing plant at the Losberg Complex. We manufacture all grades and sizes of Innopak at this plant. The manufacturing rate is enhanced by a rota-clip machine that can produce over 300 high quality cartridges per minute.
BME’s Losberg, shocktube assembly plant, 100 kilometres from Johannesburg in the North West province allows BME to be a cost competitive producer of quality shocktube initiating systems using components and materials sourced internationally BME has configured the assembly plant’s production lines so that we can assemble product on demand to a customer’s specific requirements. The semi-automated modular plant offers the capability of easily adjusting output capacity to meet changing market volume product requirements.
AXXIS is one of the leading electronic initiation systems in Sub Sahara Africa. The AXXIS system was developed in house and is manufactured by BME. The AXXIS manufacturing plant makes use of the latest digital quality control hardware and management software. The AXXIS plant is located at BME’s Rustenburg facilities, where the AXXIS electronic delay detonators are being manufactured in a wide range of cable lengths.
