Tag Archives: DigiShot

Dyno Nobel highlights $58 million Drill to Mill value example at Copper to the World

Base metals, Explosives and blasting, Mining events, Mining services, , , , , ,

Dyno Nobel’s premium explosives technology solutions and services have been on show this week at the Copper to the World conference in Adelaide, South Australia.

An industry leader in blasting technology, commercial explosives and blasting services, Dyno Nobel was the conference’s Innovation Partner and provided attendees with insights, including its Drill to Mill™ service offering.

Dyno Nobel’s Chief Technology Officer, Robert Rounsley, said: “Copper to the World is a great opportunity for us to provide our customers and potential customers with a greater understanding of the benefits our premium technology delivers.

“Our technology solutions put the customer at the centre and drive safety, sustainability and productivity benefits at their mine sites. This includes copper mines where our technology provides solutions to some of the challenges faced.”

Russell Lamont, Dyno Nobel Americas Senior Vice President, Retail Sales and Field Operations, provided the conference with a detailed look at Drill to Mill and the benefits being delivered to customers.

He said: “Drill to Mill sees our Dyno Nobel experts work with customers on a customised, operationally comprehensive mining solution to optimise blast design and explosive technology application. The result is significant value delivery in downstream processing circuits and reduced overall mining cost.”

He said the use of Drill to Mill at a major Dyno Nobel copper customer mine drove $58 million in value for the customer over one year by significantly increasing mill throughput.

Lamont said: “In this Drill to Mill example, our premium technology was used to achieve fragmentation and productivity goals in particularly difficult ore types. This included our DIFFERENTIAL ENERGY® (∆E) and DigiShot® Plus.4G technologies, implemented through a strong partnership with customer stakeholders and our world-leading DynoConsult technical expertise.”

DIFFERENTIAL ENERGY provides the ability to vary emulsion density from hole to hole as well as vertically within each individual blasthole so that explosive energy is targeted to where it is needed.

Copper to the World was held on June 18-19 at the Adelaide Convention Centre in South Australia.

Dyno Nobel helps BMA Caval Ridge become electronic blasting leader

Coal technology, Explosives and blasting, IoT, Mine operation news, Mining consumables, Mining services, , , , , , ,

The Caval Ridge coal mine, in the Bowen Basin of Queensland, Australia, now holds the title of the world’s largest electronic blast completed using Dyno Nobel DigiShot technology.

The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance-owned (BMA) mine completed a blast in December that saw 4.7 Mcu.m of overburden shifted in a blast fired with 2,194 t of bulk explosives across 3,899 holes.

Back in October, BHP Mitsui Coal’s Poitrel mine, in Queensland, became the holder of the title of world’s largest blast using wireless technology after successfully completing the third blast in a trial series to test Orica’s WebGen technology. The blast saw 1.3 million cu.m of overburden shifted in a strata blast fired with 1920 WebGen 100 units across 534 holes, BHP Mitsui said.

Caval Ridge Drill and Blast Superintendent, Dallas Gostelow, said the electronic blast was loaded over 14 days, involving engineers, schedulers and the E and F Blast crews. It involved a combination of four related blast patterns, using 8,144 detonators – a significant number that Gostelow said the company had never set before at the one time.

He said there were significant safety, efficiency and cost improvements to be made using the electronic technology.

“Timings for the detonators are fully programmable and each blast hole is physically connected to the surface by a wire, but the systems is less complicated and fully digitised, which means higher fidelity of tie in to reduce misfire potential,” he said.

Dyno Nobel launched its DigiShot Plus 4G electronic initiation system back in 2018. The system, developed by Dyno Nobel’s joint venture partner DetNet®, was designed to help reduce overall costs and increase productivity by reducing blasting delays and introducing programming speeds seven times faster than existing systems.

The ability to fire larger blasts, or multiple blast patterns in one event, means downtime for equipment is kept to a minimum, according to BMA.

Jason Smith, Principal Category Management TCO, Drill Blast & Geology, said the successful outcome of the blast was down to the collaboration across asset, function and supplier.

He said the commercial team and Caval Ridge worked with Dyno Nobel to deliver improved technology that would provide bigger and more accurate shots with significant improvements to safety, productivity and cost.

“The significance of it is the precision timing you can get from using electronics rather than pyrotechnical blasting, which requires thousands of metres of on bench tie-in work, and can lead to poor blast fragmentation,” Smith said.

“With the collaboration between Dyno and BMA, it is allowing Dyno to improve their product and giving BMA the advantage of better blasting and fragmentation and larger shots.

“This is a perfect example of the commercial teams working in the background to strengthen a supplier relationship and the site and supplier working together to deliver superior results.”