Johannesburg – South Africa – February 2012 - With an estimated explosive sales’ potential for Africa’s greenfields pegged at 500 million US dollars over the next 5 years, mining services companies need to step up and provide quality solutions that yield greater results and ensure sustainability.

This is the focus of AEL Mining Services at this year’s Mining Indaba in Cape Town, an investor platform for existing and new projects in Africa. AEL’s Wayne du Chenne, executive director – Global Business Services, expands, “Gone are the days of being a commodity provider with a one-size fits all promise.

“Mining solution providers need to proactively play an important and creative role in assisting with solving production, environmental and socio-economic challenges in partnership with their customers, which is pivotal to contributing to future economic growth and sustainability in Africa.”

As an international leader and innovator in commercial explosives and blasting solutions, AEL has continuously demonstrated its understanding of the industry’s needs and challenges, as well as the importance of extracting valuable minerals from the earth.

Customised solutions through innovation
“To remain relevant, our cutting edge R&D department, which is based in Johannesburg, plays a vital role in keeping our global operations relevant. Tasked with the delivery of two ground-breaking innovations per year, the R&D team is actively involved in assisting AEL engineers and our mining optimisation team develop solutions for specific mining applications,” says du Chenne.

According to du Chenne, AEL’s recent innovations’ list, developed in partnership with customers, goes a long way to enhance mining productivity, safety and sustainability. AEL’s recently unveiled 3rd Generation (3G) Shock Tube Uni-delay assembly is aimed at harsh and demanding narrow reef mining applications to improve environmental performance. “These specific applications consume large amounts of shock tube detonators, resulting in large amounts of plastic waste which has environmental impact. AEL’s new 3G Shock Tube Uni-delay assembly addresses this challenge.

“This product is designed and manufactured at AEL’s Initiating Systems Automated Plant (ISAP) in Modderfontein - a completely automated production environment - and has less plastic components. Further enhancements are underway to develop this into a completely lead-free product that is even more environmentally friendly. The removal of lead solids from delay detonator assemblies could lead to a reduction in negative environmental impact,” adds du Chenne.

“Another first from AEL”, says du Chenne, “is ‘The Vertical Drop’. This is an innovation that is set to revolutionise how mining is done globally and ushers in a new way of transporting emulsions underground.”

Most underground operations rely on Mobile Charging Units which travel distances of up to 5 kilometres underground transporting explosives to the face, which results in high fuel and maintenance costs for the trucks, risk to workers and inventory control issues.

“Meeting the on-going challenge of going deeper to extract minerals, innovative solutions are imperative. Our vertical drop solution currently delivers emulsion underground through a 200 metre vertical pipe in 20 minutes as opposed to conventional methods. We are intent on upping the bar and researching technologies that will enable us to transport emulsion up to 400 metres deep,” adds du Chenne.

“AEL’s fit-for-purpose solutions offer a unique combination of products, services, competencies, mining optimisation and delivery systems in an innovative manner to address our customer’s specific challenges,” adds Stuart Wade, executive director – AEL Africa.” In addition, AEL’s businesses have a specific geographic and industry focus to ensure delivery of appropriate services and products to sector specific markets.”

Holistic approach
A holistic approach is AEL’s preferred modus operandi in providing mining solutions for quarrying, surface, underground and open pit operations. Wade explains, “For instance, we understand that extracting platinum at one of our customer’s underground operations, requires an out-of-the box solution, and, that in terms of rock fragmentation, uniformity is not always what the mine requires as there are plant processing issues.

Wade explains that in this instance, AEL’s platinum customer required big and small rock fragmentation to ensure compatibility and a smooth output from their plant. “With this understanding and intelligence, our mining optimisation team assisted us to develop an explosive solution that ensured that blast results met the mine’s expectations.
“Sometimes we find that a small modification to the explosives’ solution makes a huge difference to blasting productivity, which exponentially affects the bottom line,” adds Wade.
Operational agility
According to Wade, operational agility in providing custom-made solutions is another key factor in delivering successful solutions to the mining industry.
AEL’s capabilities to provide a quick, remote and high-end solution anywhere in the world comes from the experience the group garnered servicing remote regions in Africa from its hubs in Central, East and West Africa and its facilities in Egypt. The group’s experience evolved from delivering solutions to the deep-level underground market to large complex surface operations.

Wade explains, “Our African experience was invaluable when we decided to globalise and expand into select international markets over 6 years ago. We met the demands of our Indonesian customer in South East Asia for 10 million shock tube initiating systems per year from a site that was set up for production in an exceptional feat of less than 3 months.

“Our R&D department also came to the party and developed a tailor-made solution deploying used oil in its formula to ensure cost-savings and less impact on the environment.”

Wade says that AEL’s ability to mobilise in a short turn-around time with its ‘plug and play’ modular facilities, coupled with the group’s sophisticated logistical network and security of supply, positions the group favourably with multinational mining operations exploring greenfield growth and commodity opportunities in Africa.

More recently, AEL has invested in plants in the DRC, as well as Burkina Faso, and has secured substantial long term contracts over the last couple of years through its listed company on the Lusaka stock exchange in Zambia, as well as with mining customers in Egypt, Ghana, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

More about AEL Mining Services
AEL Mining Services, a member of the JSE-listed AECI Group in South Africa, is a leading developer, producer and supplier of commercial explosives, initiating systems and blasting services for mining, quarrying and construction markets.. AEL is a world-class mining services company with global technologies that create wealth and growth in South Africa, African and selected international markets.

With its head office in Johannesburg, South Africa, AEL was established in 1896, and is today one of the world's leading suppliers of explosives and initiating systems. With 16 companies in AEL Mining Services, the group also has production facilities and offices in South Africa, Egypt, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, DRC, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Chile, and South East Asia.

With its large team of leading engineers and scientists, AEL has been in existence for over a century and has a wealth of expertise and knowledge in developing ground-breaking and innovative blasting solutions that contribute to the creation of infrastructures in countries throughout the world.