ECONOTRIM Buttbuster
Johnex profiled in Australias Best Building Construction and Mining Magazine
26 March 2010
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Johnex Featured in Kalgoorlie Miner
17 August 2009
Maxidrive® cartridge emulsion explosives featured in an article in the Kalgoorlie Miner. The Joint Venture company, Australian Explosives Pty Ltd who manufactures the product was formulated in response to industry demand, giving Johnex access to packaged cartridge emulsion product "Maxidrive ® a Chemrok Pty Ltd trade mark is used under licence by Australian Explosives Pty Ltd"
Welcome Neville McHattan
27 October 2008
We would like to welcome Neville McHattan to the Johnex Team. Neville will be taking on the role of ‘Area Manager’ at Bogan Gate, NSW where he will be responsible for the Bogan Gate Manufacturing Facility as well as the Civil and Quarry sales within the area. Welcome aboard Neville!
New website launched
20 October 2008
Johnex are proud to announce the launch of their new website. We have simplified the structure to provide an easy to use interface for the most up to date and comprehensive information available on our products.
Johnex Featured in the Australian Mining Monthly Magazine
25 July 2007
Booming business
A niche underground explosives specialist is contemplating international expansion. By Charlotte Dudley
Explosive opportunities
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Johnex will be adding a range of detonators to its product range.
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The niche explosive specialist is also considering moves both offshore and into the bulk explosives market. Demand is driving both of these moves.
- Two new products coming are Stope Sheer and Ezisplit.
Blowing up rocks and blasting through tunnels is what Johnex Explosives does best. From its early beginnings in a small town Queensland, under ground mining explosives company Johnex has grown to become a thriving business with multiple offices and a national customer base.
On the back of that growth the company is planning to launch its own range of detonators. There is also the possibility of international expansion and a move into the bulk explosives market.
With an emphasis on cost-effectivevness and safety, Johnex – previously known as Johnson Hi Tech is a developer and a manufacturer of a wide range of controlled explosives for all applications in the mining and construction industries.
Started about t 10 years ago in Charters Towers, Queensland, the company initially services mining operators in the MT Isa and broken Hill regions. The business has since established offices in Perth and Kalgoorlie and supplies explosives equipment to underground mines in a range of commodities and locations. Some of its bigger names costumers include Rio Tinto’s Argyle Diamonds in the Kimberley and BHP Billiton;s Olympic Dam in South Australia.
Johnex managing director and the company founder Dick Johnson said with the current mining market business was – no pun intended booming.
“it ‘s awesome at the moment. It hasn’t slowed up one bit and it’s growing every week, “ he said.
Johnson Australia’s Mining Monthly that nickel had been a big driver for the business as miners scurried to take advantage of the new price environment. He said as the minerals boom led to an expansion of mining operations, demand for quality explosives products and service expertise had also grown.
Johnex sales manager Darren Flanagan said: “[A lot of mining companies] want to come back to areas that have already had services installed… to grab pockets of ore that were probably to low a grade at the time, but now they’re mineable.”
For that, he said customers required reliable blasting technologies. Johnson said Johnex’s one-piece perimeter hole blasting technology had proven extremely popular because of its improved safety and potential for cost savings.
Earlier perimeter hole blasting techniques, Johnson said, often resulted in incomplete blasting due to gaps between sticks or insecure couplings. As well as being less cost effective, Johnson said such systems meant unexploded sticks would often end up on the muck pile creating a major safety hazard. Johnson said because the Johnex perimeter hole product was in one piece and incorporated the primer, it eliminated the safety issues associated with joining sticks, gapping and separate primers.
"[user of johnex perimeter hole product]" have virtually no misfires in the muck pile anymore… because it’s one piece and the primer is attached. So we have virtually a 99 percent reliability rate and in the old days they had about 15 percent failure rate.” He said.
With safety a prime concern for the company it almost comes as no surprise that Johnex had a hand in last year’s Beaconsfield mine rescue.
Flanagan, who is an experience explosive specialist, play a key role at the Tasmanian mine, being responsible for the blasting through rock to reach the trapped miners. He is an expert in the use of the rocKraker penetrating cone fracture explosive manufactured by Brandrill that was used to get through several meters of rock in the rescue.
Speaking to AMM, Flangan struggled to find the words to describe the experience that he said has changed his life for ever.
“it was… terrifying.” He said . “ you know it is a whole thing, not knowing if you are going to kill them or not and them knowing that there was no other way. [The rescue team had] tried and exhausted every other method they could to break that rock and they just could not do it without blasting it.”
Flanagan has significant experiences in blasting sensitive locations, including dam tunnelling, gas pipelines and delicate heritage listed spots but had never before been in such a tense life and death situation.
[“The trapped minors and I”] talked on the phone for 29 hours straight basically while I blasted closer and closer and closer to them. [“ trapped miner tood Russell, who also has blasting experience] would count down each shot ‘3-2-1-fire’ and then I’d push the button.”
Events at the Beaconsfield demonstrates the importance of safety issues in both mine operations in general and, more specifically; in underground explosive technology.
Johnson said he believed research and development had a significant role to play on the ongoing development of safer, more reliable explosive products. In-house R&D at Johnex had led to the development of two soon to be launch products.
Stope Sheers is a product designed to minimise the potential for problems associated with unstable hanging walls while Ezisplit s a smooth wall, pre-splitting blasting technology that ahs recently completed trials at the Kalgoorlie Superpit.
Johnson said the Superpit reported major cost savings while trailing Ezisplit.
“They’re now achieving near perfect results and only using half as much explosives as they previously used.” He said.
In a new step for the company, Johnex will be introducinbg detonators to its product range within the next three months. In addition, Johnson said, the company was seriously considering entering the bulk explosive market.
Both moves come as response to increased costumer demand, especially from small to medium-sized mining operators that he said were finding it difficult to get serviced in bulk “ by the big duopoky” of Orica and Dyno Nobel.
While Johnex doeas not currently supply to the international market, Johnson said there was potential for international expansion. He told AMM the company had received many enquiries from overseas about both its products and about possible joint ventures.
EZISPLIT - The latest addition to the Johnex product range
23 April 2007
In keeping with the Johnex fortitude of being “Australia’s Explosive innovators”, we are happy to announce the final commissioning of an innovative product called Ezisplit. Our new product, appropriately named, has been specifically designed as a pre-split product for water logged boreholes in open-cut benches. It reduces drilling costs; saves on loading time, will not float and because of its higher energy factor, less boreholes are required.
As with all new product releases, the Ezisplit product has had to follow gruelling trials and rigorous on-site-testing. Several improvements have allowed us to realise the final stages in releasing our Ezisplit product into the market place.
What does this mean for the mining industry?
- Reduced drilling costs due to Ezisplit’s high weight strength, drilling costs can be reduced by up to 32%. Research and development trials have seen drill spacing of pre-split holes move from 1.2m to 1.8m on average.
- Reduced charge-up time. Charge-up crews are required to charge fewer holes per pre-split blast with fewer holes drilled per pre-split. In reduced drill spacing designs (1.2m), some charge-up crews have only been charging every second hole since using Ezisplit.
- Smooth high walls. Comparative results with traditional pre-split products and the new Ezisplit have shown similar results in producing smooth high walls and in most cases have demonstrated better results. The higher energy produced by Ezisplit has produced cleaner pre-split breaks at the toe of the borehole. This is done without having to double charge as is the tradition when using conventional pre-split product.
- Easier loading in wet-holes. With the Ezisplit product presented as a semi-rigid one-piece coilable explosive, charging boreholes that are water logged with high density water is simpler and easier. The rigidity of the product enables it to be pushed to the bottom of the borehole and its locking spiders will keep it from floating out.
The Images below illustrate a few blast results of the Ezisplit product that was used in some treacherous ground at the Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mine (KCGM) in Western Australia.
Ezisplit product was loaded into every second borehole with spacing’s between boreholes at 1.2m. Further tests and blasts are delivering positive comments from the KCGM drill and blast crews.
ENQUIRIES:
Ezisplit Enquiries – Wayne Pettingill 0427 217 978
West Coast – Peter Renton 0429 685 183
East Coast – Darren Flanagan 0409 883 961
Tasmania – Todd Russell 0439 987 567
Johnex Plays Vital Role in "The Great Escape"
24 May 2006
Johnex staff member Darren Flanagan was flown to Tasmania by Beaconsfield Mine Management to undertake the critical blasting phases of the Beaconsfield mine rescue.
Johnex are proud to have been a part of the rescue and continue to develop safer, more precise explosive technology and products for the benefit of the mining industry worldwide.
