The downturn in mining investments has created an atmosphere of doom and gloom around mining in general. This ignores the reality that mining isn’t something that is going to stop. Coal may certainly be facing an uncertain future but the humanity does not have replacements for iron, copper, gold or any of the other products of extractive industry. Open pit mining, drill and blast operations and the mining industry in general will continue to thrive. There just isn’t the same boom mentality that has to some degree became almost the norm.

Drilling and blasting in open cast mining operations is still significantly less expensive than underground mining. While there are still safety concerns, open pit mining presents a much easier environment than underground mining. Drilling and blasting in surface mining is however now under significant cost pressures as the price of commodities has fallen significantly.

One of the simple ways to manage cost is to ensure that a blast hole is loaded with the correct amount of explosives and the cheapest possible explosive. To get an accurate blast loading sheet, it is critical to know the hole depth of the blast hole. This can be done with a dipping tape but this method of hole dipping is labour intensive and the data collection is often inefficient. The most cost effective explosive is ANFO but this is not a water resistant explosive. Having an accurate knowledge of the state of the hole can provide a good guide to product choice. If the blast hole has water in it or has wet sides an emulsion based explosive which has better water resistance can be used but these explosives add significant costs to the drilling and blasting operation and as such are best only used when truly necessary. To determine this, accurate water depth measurement is critical.

Having access to a hole dipper which makes the hole dipping process fast and allows the data to be recorded electronically for easy use is a major advantage. The benchm8 8550 automated hole dipper manufactured by Iguana Industrial Solutions is a unique product in this area. It provides many advantages over dipping tape and significantly improves the hole dipping process. The blast hole depth data and water depth measurement it provides allow the drill and blast engineer or shot firer to better work out the amount of explosives to use and also to make the right explosives product choices.

These better decisions allow the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the open pit mining drill and blast operations to be significantly improved.