References › Explosives

MCS

A historic partnership in Saudi Arabia.

This partnership between Modern Chemicals Services (MCS) and our Group aims to provide the Saudi Arabian market with the most up to date products, services, technologies and methods to assist it in maintaining its impressive development.

With its sites distributed throughout a huge territory, MCS has the capacity to provide civil engineering, mining and quarrying operators with the full range of products and services required to optimise their operations: from cartridged and bulk explosives, drilling and blasting, technical support to the complete rock on the ground service.

As a foreign operator, it took more than four years of working with the Saudi Arabian authorities to introduce these efficient technologies. The success of the venture is due to the complimentary aspects of the partnership between Modern Chemicals Company, with its extensive market and regulatory knowledge and EPC Groupe’s leading-edge technology and century-long experiences.

These skills now serve Saudi Arabian customers.

Sydvaranger

A polar challenge for EPC Groupe in Norway

EPC Groupe is competent in the manufacture and use of explosives in the most extreme conditions. Due to this competence it secured the contract to provide explosives to the Sydvaranger iron ore mine located 400 km north of the Arctic Circle and 2,250 km from the North Pole.

This large-scale project, successfully implemented in a region in which temperatures of -30 °C are normal for several months of the year, requires the production of up to 15,000 tonnes of explosives per annum to meet the current needs of the open-pit mine and those of the future underground mining developments.

Suitable mobile manufacturing units were designed and commissioned for this operation. These units are designed to produce some 100 tonnes of bulk explosives per day. Due to the remote location, we are required to hold up to 3 months of raw materials at any time.

While managing this larger-than-life industrial project through a multidisciplinary international team, EPC Groupe provides its customer with advice and training, reinforcing a bond of trust established at the outset of this venture.

EPC Groupe’s professionalism and expertise on this project has received global recognition by the explosive industry.

Glendoe

BAM Ritchies underground work

Following the collapse of the upstream tunnel of the Glendoe hydroelectric power plant, BAM Ritchies won the contract for the repairs necessary to restore the operation of the site. The rehabilitation work required the use of explosives in sensitive areas to excavate the tunnels. Due to the need for a fast solution, BAM Ritchies chose the Underground Bulk System (UBS) of EPC-UK, both for its high level of efficiency and the quick response of EPC-UK.

This system was developed by AEL, a South African based explosives company. It uses an emulsion specially developed for applications such as these and has been tried and tested for many years. EPC-UK has an exclusive distribution contract with AEL for the use of this technology in Europe.

This system allows for the rapid and safe loading of a bulk emulsion product (which remains non explosive until sensitised in the blast hole) with good post-explosion fume characteristics, which are particularly important in tunnel applications.