Modern Mining January 2018

COVER STORY

have put a great deal of effort into ensuring that we have a full suite of products and systems for underground mining – for example, our new underground mobile pumping system for nar- row reef mining and our new Central Blasting System (CBS), which brings the benefits of our AXXIS electronic blasting system to under- ground operations – and this has resulted in the award of some significant contracts. “We’ve also, of course, introduced our rapid emulsion delivery system, which is designed to deliver emulsions underground seamlessly without tying up the cage,” he continues. “The system was developed over a three-year period in partnership with the Modder East gold mine. The installation at Modder East – which has a 318-m vertical emulsion pipeline, the longest in the world – is the only one we’ve completed thus far but we’re in advanced discussions with other mines who are interested in the system.” The Modder East installation delivers emul- sion from surface to storage tanks underground. Used with BME’s narrow reef pump technol- ogy, it has allowed the mine to move away from the use of cartridge explosives. Advantages of the system include increased shaft availability, streamlined delivery of emulsion to operat- ing sections, reduced labour requirements and accurate recording of explosives distribution from surface to underground. In the open-pit space, BME continues to

The AXXIS systemwas employed in September 2017 in a record-breaking blast at the Kansanshi mine in Zambia.

An AXXIS blasting box, tester and logger. The use of electronic detonators allows detonations to be precisely timed.

Group, another relatively new creation within BME. “In essence, the idea is for the

Innovation Hub to feed newly developed tech- nologies, tools and products into the Product Management Group, which is then tasked with taking them to market in the shortest possible time with all the right support in place,” he explains. Reviewing the past year, Keenan says that a particularly positive development has been BME’s increasing penetration of the under- ground market. “We derive the bulk of our turnover from open-pit mining but we’re deter- mined to grow our underground business. We

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