FRAGMENTATION
Organised blast outcomes
Getting fragmentation right involves a lot of factors, from the right energy explosive to the right planning and detonation technology. Paul Moore reviews some developments from the key players
Getting optimal blast outcomes can make use of a raft of technology available today but delivering it to the mining customer in an intuitive package can be challenging.
AEL Mining Services late last year launched its total value proposition- intelliBlast™- that will, it says amongst other things, help customers pursue cash preservation during these tough economic conditions.
In front of 200 mining industry stakeholders, intelliBlast™ was launched at AEL’ s third annual Blasting Masterclass at The Forum, in Johannesburg, on 29 September 2016.
Wayne Du Chenne, Executive Director – Southern Africa at AEL says intelliBlast™ is the model that highlights the way the company has always operated – by partnering with customers on their unique journey to optimal blast outcomes. intelliBlast is AEL’ s“ holistic and flexible approach to help customers on their unique journey to optimal blast outcomes. This approach can help AEL’ s customers improve their balance sheet and pursue cash preservation, which is imperative in the current economic climate.”
Optimal blast outcomes reduce inefficiencies and operating costs and improve productivity and output. The company says that intelliBlast is the culmination of over 100 years of market leadership in Africa and a key market differentiator. AEL says its flexibility allows the company to provide a range of offerings to its clients, from customer-applied energy through to complete optimal energy solutions.
“ The industry across the world is facing tough times with challenging economic conditions,” says Du Chenne,“ Now, more than ever, our customers need us. Customers come to AEL because we have always been innovative, flexible and able to meet the challenges they are dealing with.”
Du Chenne says the correct use of energy at the source significantly eliminates inefficiencies in the value chain, reducing operating costs and improving productivity and output – exactly what customers are looking for.
“ intelliBlast demonstrates to the industry that AEL’ s holistic approach can help improve our customer’ s balance sheet and pursue cash preservation. Given the current market conditions across the world, this is crucial to any business,” Du Chenne says.
He says intelliBlast™ also highlights that AEL is strategically positioned to deploy at customers’ operations seamlessly, through innovative and agile products and services.
This ability to rapidly deploy, combined with the company’ s flexibility, allows AEL to provide a
A use of the Redbird drone, tested in a CVH quarry in France, is filming the blasted heap and comparing the data obtained with that used to plan the blast in EPC’ s Frontir software, in order to view the blasted heap in 3D and understand how the blasting went
range of offerings to the industry,“ from customer applied energy which is an offering that is solely dependent on our product bundle; through to a complete optimal energy solution where we fully partner with our customers allowing them to fully outsource all blasting related offerings and can contract with us on specific outcomes and performance measures.”
“ Whether it’ s providing customers with the products and services they need to perform their own blast or full integration into their daily operations with planning, execution, measurement and tracking, intelliBlast™ has a solution for every requirement,” Du Chenne says.
Du Chenne emphasises that intelliBlast is not new to AEL’ s operations.“ With over 100 years of being the market leader in Africa, we have reached this point where we can bring our holistic approach to our customers across the world. What is new about intelliBlast™, however, is our refined ability to demonstrate our flexible and customisable capabilities in a simplistic manner,” Du Chenne says.
The intelliBlast approach centres on AEL’ s value of‘ simplexity’. Simplexity is a process which combines the complexity of endless hours of analysis, design, testing, technological innovation and expertise to create a product and offering that allows the most simple, yet effective, usability for the end user.
“ We want our customers to have peace of
10 International Mining | MARCH 2017