Mining explosives manufacturer AEL Mining Services global mining optimisation manager Simon Tose has been elected a board member of the Institute of Quarrying (IOQ).

The announcement was made on April 16, the first day of the yearly IOQ conference, which was held in Umhlanga, KwaZulu-Natal.

The conference is designed for professional development and the facilitation of infor-mation exchange between industry peers and was attended by AEL customers, suppliers and competitors, such as cement and industrial company Lafarge, readymix concrete products supplier AfriSam, explosives supplier BME and blasting products provider Orica, among others.

According to AEL, Tose is a leading authority in the industry and has represented AEL Mining Services at several international key symposiums, conferences and colloquiums over the years, the most recent of which was the hosting of a workshop at the forty-first Annual Conference on Explosives and Blasting Technique, in New Orleans, US, in February this year.

The workshop focused on highwall control, providing insight for blasters into the basics of safe highwall control, and was hosted by the International Society for Explosives Engineers, attracting more than 1 400 delegates globally.

Recently, Tose also visited New Delhi, in India, where he attended the tenth International Symposium on Rock Fragmentation by Blasting: Fragblast 10, held from November 24 to 29 in 2012. The Fragblast symposiums represent the most important events in disseminating the latest advances in the science and technology of rock fragmentation by blasting and other related means.

Tose has also published several papers, a commonly known one being ‘A scientific perspective of blasting in hot holes and reactive grounds’, which examines how AEL has tested and developed ways to ensure safety and ease of selection of explosives and initiating systems in situations where a specific additional hazard may exist.