Mining Weekly: South Africa needs intensive investment in blasting training

Mining explosives supplier Bulk Mining Explosives (BME) director Tony Rorke told Mining Weekly that unless South Africa makes a serious investment towards improving their blasting training, millions of rands per year will continue to be wasted in lost productivity.

…intensive investment in training and the use of new blasting technologies are needed if opencast mining operators are to take full advantage of the booming commodities market over the next few years. Effective blasting, probably the most crucial aspect of opencast mining, is largely being neglected as operators, accustomed to the results they are getting, do not examine the opportunities available to them to increase their outputs.