MAXAM has been providing blasting solutions for its customers in Africa for over forty years, bringing its global experience and know-how to the continent, where it currently employs more than 750 people. During these four decades we have accompanied our customers wherever they needed us and we currently are involved in projects in over 18 African countries. 

Zambia has the world’s highest-grade deposits of copper and is the 7th largest producer of the metal worldwide. Expanding to this key mining market was thus a natural next step for us to retain our position as a leading player in the continent. 

A distinguishing mark of MAXAM is its ability to leverage experience working on projects in five continents and combines it with strong local teams with a deep understanding of the market. And that’s how we decided to target the Zambian market. We now have a fully-fledged subsidiary with a highly-skilled team of Zambian professionals, led by Anthony Mwila, to support our customers.

However, our commitment to this country goes beyond our investment in local talent. We have also brought the latest bulk technology, RIOFLEX, an innovative leading hydrogel formulation, now available on all the continents. MAXAM is the global leader in this tech-nology and continues to evolve it to provide a superior blasting result robustly. RIOFLEX can be applied to reactive ground mines without modification, thus providing the full energy associated with this superior energetic suspension of ammonium nitrate. 

To enable customer proximity and ensure security of supply for their operations we have set-up the first manufacturing plant of RIOFLEX in the country. Combined with our latest delivery systems technology, the FLEXITRUCK, we can guarantee a smooth and efficient operation and boosted productivity. These mobile sensitising units can deliver both chem-ically and mechanically sensitised RIOFLEX. The products meet divergent customer needs, with the former utilising the cross-linked technology to deliver a wide density range (0.6 to 1.25g/cm3) and the latter ensuring absolute control during blasting (no column rise after charging). This in turn improves safety and guarantees planned stemming length are maintained within the hole.

Apart from bulk technology, we have also launched the extensive range of cartridged RIOGEL, which covers most mining applications. A recent development in Hydrogel car-tridged technology is the very competitive, high energy, booster sensitive, large diameter RIOGEL SB, specifically formulated for the construction and small-scale hard rock mining industry. MAXAM’s reliable initiation system – RIONEL is already gaining market share in Zambia and available from the company magazines.  

MAXAM’s unique technological capabilities are enhanced by its unmatched technical ex-pertise. The company has partnered with customers across the world for more than 145 years, having been exposed to any kind of imaginable challenge. The lessons learned help-ing miners in five continents and in three different centuries translate into a unique know-how. Our Zambian team benefits from that global support to make that expertise meaningful to the local realities of the Zambian market. We are currently in the process of deploying targeted service and product solutions to customers in the country, where many of our innovative technologies have never been available.