In March 2003, Rio Tinto Coal Australia's (RTCA) new Hail Creek open cut coal mine commenced operations in the Bowen Basin. Hail Creek is a two-seam strip mining operation utilising two 90 m3 draglines and a fleet of excavators and trucks to remove the overburden._x000D_
All overburden at Hail Creek is blasted prior to excavation. The mine conducts its own drill and blast operations while engaging Dyno Nobel for the provision of explosives supply and loading truck (bulk explosives vehicle - BEV) services. This arrangement was favoured over outsourcing the entire blasting function to a contractor._x000D_
Subsequent to a value engineering review, the mine set about developing and implementing a blasting operation that did not rely on the need to store bulk quantities of ammonium nitrate on site. There were advantages identified in doing this, in particular the reduction of capital expenditure required and reduced exposure to a number of recently introduced security requirements._x000D_
This approach also makes sense operationally. The establishment of reload facilities for the BEV close to the blasting location, where turnaround times are kept to a minimum, increases the productivity of the BEV._x000D_
For this strategy to be successful the logistics of ammonium nitrate supply into the blasting operations has to be well planned and thoroughly executed. This means a robust planning and forecasting arrangement needs to be established with the supplier and transporters of the ammonium nitrate._x000D_
To date, 80 million bcm of overburden has been blasted at Hail Creek and each year the quantity of overburden requiring blasting is increasing. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a study: evaluating the effectiveness to date of the strategy to conduct blasting operations without ammonium nitrate storage on site, and identifying whether there is a limit to which this strategy can operate after which the introduction of bulk ammonium nitrate storage facilities are necessary.