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COVER STORY
18
MODERN MINING
January 2017
K
eenan, a Canadian who took over
at BME in September 2015, is em-
phatic that the company needs
to broaden its geographic base.
“BME was originally established
in South Africa more than 30 years ago and has
since steadily expanded into Africa – to the
point where we’re now a major player across
the continent, with a particularly strong pres-
ence in the SADC region and West Africa,” he says. “In respect of overseas markets, we already
have a presence in some regions – including a
joint venture in Australia – but we will now fo-
cus on growing this footprint even further.”
He adds that BME will initially focus on
marketing its AXXIS
®
electronic detonator
system in overseas markets. “This provides an
entry point for us. The ultimate goal, however,
will be to leverage off the sale and support of
electronic detonators to become a full service
provider, just as we are here in Africa. Already
we are supplying emulsion explosives to the
Indonesian coal mining industry and, based
on this experience, it is very clear that we can
operate very successfully as a bulk explosives
supplier in overseas markets.”
A few months ago BME attempted to expand
into Canada by purchasing Nordex Explosives.
“Our bid was not successful but the exercise
has proven very valuable inasmuch as we’ve
now identified other potential partners,” notes
Keenan. “We like the Canadian market. It’s
healthy and the mining culture and technolo-
gies are similar to South Africa, so we believe
it holds excellent potential for us.”
As regards Colombia, Keenan says BME now
has a contract in place with a parastatal which
supplies the country’s mines. “Colombia is one
of the biggest markets in the world for electronic
detonators. We went through an evaluation
process with the parastatal and major mining
operations in respect of our AXXIS system and
they were impressed by its performance. They
BME grows its overseas footprint
Joseph Keenan, Managing Director of BME.
BME is pioneering the use
of technologies such as un-
manned aerial vehicles, GPS
and 3D photogrammetry to
improve blast design.
Explosives supplier BME, part of the plus R16 billion-a-year, JSE-listed
Omnia Group, is continuing to operate profitably despite tough
conditions in the mining sector. While Africa remains the focus for
BME, it is expanding steadily into overseas markets, the latest being
Colombia in South America. BME’s MD, Joseph Keenan, says the
globalisation of BME’s activities is just one of a range of initiatives
designed to allow BME to continue on the uninterrupted growth path
– in terms of revenues – it has experienced in recent years.