Modern Mining April 2024

MINING INDABA REVIEW

AECI prepares for the next hundred years Accompanying explosives manufacturer, AECI’s celebration of being listed on the JSE for a century, is its eye to the future as the company targets growth in key mining jurisdictions globally and becoming a leading explosives and mining chemicals company world-wide, says Group CEO Holger Riemensperger.

S peaking to Modern Mining on the sideline of the Mining Indaba, Riemensperger explained that the home-grown entity is ranked in the tier one group of explosives companies in the world. However, its entry into key markets includ ing Australia, Latin America, North America and Asia Pacific, will see the company grow organically to move up the ranks. Mandated to drive “certain areas of change to align with its vision of the future”, Riemensperger is focusing on “what its people, business culture and leadership of the future should look like,” amongst others. To streamline the business, AECI, which is cur rently a diversified industrial business with several business units, is in the process of restructuring with the aim of focusing primarily on its mining segment. Discussing the decision for the new approach, Riemensperger explains: “Decathletes are consid ered the best all-around athletes in the world but, in each individual discipline, the decathlete will be beaten by the expert. And that is a reality. One needs to focus on one’s expertise, which is what AECI is doing so we are better able to succeed in new resource rich regions of interest.” Following AECI’s exponential growth, the com pany plans on further strengthening its global presence. Seventy percent of AECI business is from

Group CEO Holger Riemensperger.

outside of South Africa with just 30% emanating locally. “AECI is the number one explosives manufacturer in South Africa and in Africa . Over the past few years we have grown our footprint through strategic acqui sitions in Indonesia and Australia, and are exploring possibilities for entering the European market.” AECI targets an array of commodities Aligned with South Africa’s long history of mining across a suite of commodities, has been AECI’s 128 years of partnering with the industry. The explosives expert continues to pioneer innovations in prod uct developments to meet the needs of customers across a wide spectrum of commodities. “We are strong in gold, coal, platinum and iron ore as well as the energy metals the world is eyeing as it transitions to clean energy sources, including cop per, nickel and cobalt and specialty minerals such as molybdenum, found in specific regions of the world. Backed by a century of knowledge and expertise, our strategy is to enter firmly into new age metals. There are currently three regions where energy min erals are abundant. These are Australia, where we have an established presence, and where we are on a growth path; Latin America, where we recently made an entry into Chile, which is a big in copper mining jurisdiction, and third; North America,” says Riemensperger. A pioneer of note With a history of innovation dating back to the early days of dynamite, AECI continues to successfully develop cutting-edge products and technologies for a changing mining industry.

AECI has a combination of explosives and mining chemicals expertise.

16  MODERN MINING  April 2024