Hydrocarbon Waste Management

Explosive Fuels

Oz Future Fuels have been working within the mining industry over the past five years to manage onsite waste hydrocarbon and recycling practice. “We provide full cycle management through collecting waste hydrocarbons, refining and supplying back for reuse onsite as a blended fuel, re-refined base oil or lubricant oil. Through the use of our innovative technology we can ensure our clients are receiving re-refined waste oil which meets the required specifications when blended” Allan Lear, Director of OZ Future Fuels.



Minimising mine sites waste stockpiles, significantly reduces carbon emissions from waste transportation and provides reusable fuel and oils at a reduced cost. Total hydrocarbon resource management improves coal mine profitability with significant environmental advantages.

Oz Future Fuels have now moved into explosive fuel blends. Waste oil collected from our mining customers are being refined and blended with explosive agents providing further waste recycling initiatives. This enables our customers to reduce their diesel usage for explosives by up to 50% along with significant carbon credits.

It has been standard practice for Australian mines to use 100% diesel with ammonium nitrate for mine blasting. However over the past 18 months mines within the Hunter Valley NSW and Bowen Basin Qld have been implementing innovative waste recycling methods through waste oil blending with their explosive fuels.

In 2001 engineers in the Fuels and Lubricants Group of Shell Co. of Australia developed a technique to blend waste oil with ANFO for a product that can be used in blasting. Mines throughout the world produce thousands of litres of waste fuel oil that needs to be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. By using the fuel oil in a blasting compound, transporting the waste oil is eliminated, the quantity of fuel oil needed for blasting is reduced, and potentially toxic hydrocarbons in waste oil can be destroyed by the high blast temperature. Shell tested the ANFO-waste oil blend at Hamersley Iron's Marandoo mine site, and found that the ratio of waste oil to ANFO blend could be as much as 50-50 without any detrimental effect to the final blasting performance.

Oz Future Fuels collects the waste oil from the mine sites and refines any impurities from the oil ensuring minimal greenhouse gas emissions. This refined waste oil is then supplied onsite for use with the explosive fuel providing cost savings and environmental benefits to the mine. An average size mine would save an estimated 750,000 litres of diesel per year on a 50:50 explosive fuel blend. This reduces the mines CO2 emissions by 2,025 metric tones per year equivalent to the greenhouse emission of 371 passenger vehicles each year. Furthermore, the mine could save up to $225,000 dollars per year in reduced fuel costs through the use of the refined waste oil in the explosive fuel blend. This method of used oil recycling in explosives is expected to become standard practice within the mining industry over the following few years. It is most imperative that Australian mines look for environmental initiatives for carbon footprint reductions. Costs saving avenues have become more pertinent in this industry due to the impact of the economic crisis on the mining industry.

How Dyno Nobel can reduce $40 per tonne on your explosives costs using Used Oil

Explosives - By Kramer

Links to other Waste Oil Explosive Projects

http://www.minematters.riotintocoalaustralia.com.au/ENG/articles/search_our_articles_1199.asp

http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/Article/What-a-wonderful-waste/475535.aspx

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/explosives-mining1.htm

For further information on our Explosive Oil Recycling Initiative please email info@ozfuturefuels.com or call (07) 5494 8622.