BME Mining Canada to expand blasting plant

Just eighteen months since its launch, BME Mining Canada installed a dual salt emulsion explosive plant is expanding its roll-out into the Canadian market. Next it will construct a detonator assembly facility. The new plant gives customers access to a dual salt and single salt product, either gassed or micro-balloon sensitized.

BME Mining Canada  is a joint venture between South Africa-based BME , part of the JSE-listed Omnia Group, and Canadian contractor Consbec Inc. The venture focuses on underground mining in northern Ontario from Sudbury and Timmins.

The company will customize its emulsion product to suit a range of customer needs and preferences. This customization capability is built on decades of field experience, research and development conducted since BME first introduced cold emulsion technology to Africa in 1984.

It is expected that the detonator manufacturing facility will deliver its products by the end of the Northern Hemisphere summer, and these will include non-electric detonators and the electronic AXXIS detonators. There will also be an Anfo bagging facility in place by the end of 2021, for those customers who require this packaged product.

BME Mining Canada will also conduct ongoing research and development to further enhance its offerings for local applications.

The company’s first underground loading equipment – an uphole unit and a lateral unit – will soon be at work in a Sudbury mine. These machines will be supplied by BME from its Africa base, but there may be future local production in Sudbury.

In addition to BME Mining Canada’s current focus on underground mining, it draws on the capability of both joint venture partners to target blasting and related work in large open pits across the country. For instance, as one of Canada’s largest mining and construction contractors, Consbec has a network of approved bulk explosive manufacturing facilities located from British Columbia to Nova Scotia – and as far north as Labrador.

BME Mining Canada Inc. can meet the full range of customer needs in explosives, drilling and blasting. Visit www.BME.co.za.