What is the history of Dyno Nobel and what capabilities do you bring to the Chilean market?

Dyno Nobel is one of the largest explosives companies in the world. We were founded by Alfred Nobel and we have a 150 year history of innovation in explosives. Dyno Nobel has a presence on all continents, and currently Chile is our hub for Latin America. Dyno Nobel Chile was acquired by Orica in 2006. Eventually in 2010, Dyno Nobel returned to Latin American and installed a plant for electronic initiation systems in Coquimbo. Dyno Nobel is the only company that offers a full suite of products and services associated with blasting. Dyno Nobel owns several companies, such as Tradestar Corporation, which produces mobile production equipment; Detnet South Africa, which participates in the manufacturing of electronic detonators, and DynoConsult that provides technical advisory services. Our business is devoted to improving efficiency and productivity in all aspects of the blasting process for clients.

What is Dyno Nobel’s strategy for the Chilean market?

We work with initiation systems, but we also want to provide blasting services, implement the sale of bulk explosives and grow our technical assistance capacity in order to optimize processes within mining.

Currently we have a production plant where we manufacture initiation systems, and we are planning to add bulk explosives. We also manufacture emulsion to implement new technologies such as differential energy, a new product we created and refer to as Delta E. We are currently finishing construction of a new explosives manufacturing plant and plan to open it in 2020.

How is Dyno Nobel competing in the current market?

Dyno Nobel has a 15% market share in the initiation systems business. We expect to grow within the next few years by a constant rate annually in the explosives market. We are active participants in all bidding processes in the explosives market today, and the tender of several mining companies is about to begin, so there is an opportunity to participate in different projects that represent more than 20% of the explosives market. Our market share in Chile is around 1% and Dyno Nobel is determined to expand rapidly moving forward.

What are Dyno Nobel’s biggest advancements in innovation today?

The main technology we are working on right now is called Differential Energy. Delta E ensures customers deliver the right amount of energy to different layers of rock within a blast, producing better fragmentation and reducing the overall mining cost for the customer. Customers using Delta E have benefited from increased safety, significantly reduced mining costs, and a reduced environmental impact. This product also works in a variety of mine conditions: hard rock, soft rock, buffer blasting, holes with water, dry holes, reactive ground and hot holes.

Another one of our technologies is the Commander System to program and shotfire our electronic detonators Digishot Plus 4G. This technology is being implemented in Chile and it increases the programming speed of the detonators by seven times together with a friendly operative system.

In addition, during 2019, Dyno Nobel released the EZshot. This Nonel initiation system gives the customer the ability to use electronic precision for improved perimeter control, helping them to increase safety, save even more time and lower overall production costs. Furthermore, EZshot does not require new training, allowing the customer to quickly move forward on all projects.

What is the biggest area of opportunity for Dyno Nobel today?

There is a great opportunity to minimize environmental impact, improve the drilling and blasting processes, increase the safety minimizing the exposure of people on the field and reduce the amount of equipment used.

What goals does Dyno Nobel wish to achieve in the next two years?

We seek to implement Differential Energy Technology and the Digishot Plus 4G Commander System in Chile. In order to achieve that, we have to build the trust of our customers and make them understand that they will see outstanding benefits. Our goal is not to compete in terms of price, but rather to demonstrate that our products generate the most value in the short term. Another goal of ours is to continue diversifying our workforce. Currently women make up 38% of our operations and we intend to continue growing this number.