Modern Mining January 2015

COVER STORY

in both its home market, South Africa, and the Southern African region generally, with the exception of Zimbabwe. “There’s been some shuffling of contracts between the major sup- pliers but this is nothing unusual and overall we’ve been encouraged by the stability of the Southern African market. In South Africa itself we were far less affected by the plati- num mining strike than our competitors due to our relatively small exposure to underground platinum mining while we continue to have a good workload in Botswana, Namibia, where we have two new contracts, Zambia, where we remain very active at the expanding Kansanshi mine, which is Africa’s biggest copper mine, and in the DRC, where we now count global miner ENRC as a major customer.” Of course, the two big mining growth pro­ jects in the Southern African region are First Quantum’s Sentinel copper mine in north- western Zambia, which will rival Kansanshi (also owned by First Quantum) in size and which is now commissioning, and the Husab uranium mine in Namibia, still in the early stages of construction. Between them, these two projects represent an investment of at least US$4 billion in Africa’s mining sector. “The explosives supply contracts for both these mines have been awarded to compa- nies not based in Africa,” notes Hay. “This is

disappointing as Africa needs a strong ‘home grown’ explosives industry to underpin the development of its mining sector.” Discussing West Africa, Hay says this has unquestionably been the most difficult market for BME in recent months, a combination of the effects of falling commodity prices, the Ebola outbreak and – in some countries – political factors. “We lost one contract in Mauritania and generally we’ve seen a cutback in production at mines in the area, which has in turn impacted on the volumes of explosives they require. Although we still have a strong belief in the potential of the region, we are slightly restruc- turing our West African operation to align it with the current business realities.” Turning to BME’s technological expertise, Hay says that BME has now completed a sev- eral-year period of intense R&D which has seen its AXXIS electronic detonator system reach full maturity and gain widespread acceptance in mining and quarrying, its BlastMap III soft- ware become ever more versatile, enabling complex timing designs to be undertaken, and its new portable emulsion pump being fully commercialised after six years of development and trials. “We’re excited by all these products, of course, but our narrow reef technology is extremely significant,” comments Hay. “As you probably know, BME is the market leader when it comes to emulsion explosives for the surface mining sector. But we’ve traditionally had a low share of the underground market. We believe the portable emulsion pump will act as a ‘game changer’, allowing us to grow signifi- cantly in this segment of the market. Indeed

A section of Omnia’s new nitric acid plant with the ammonium nitrate plant in the background. Hay views the plant as a strategic asset that will give Omnia and BME a competitive edge for years.

“We believe the portable emulsion pump will act as a ‘game changer’, allowing us to grow significantly in this segment of the market.”

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