East Africa

AEL East Africa is one of the leading providers of a full range of blasting products and solutions for the open cast mining, quarrying, construction and underground mining industry in this region.

In 1999, AEL established a business unit in Tanzania to respond directly to the growing market needs of the mining, quarrying and construction industries in East Africa.

African Explosives (Tanzania) Limited was registered in Tanzania in 1999.

AEL established a regional hub office in Mwanza, and a modular bulk explosives manufacturing facility at Geita Gold Mine in northwest Tanzania and Ethiopia in 2000. The Geita plant and its on-site explosives and detonator magazines form the hub of the company’s East African operations. From this hub, AEL is able to service the Tanzanian mining, quarry and construction industry, as well as existing and potential customers in other East African countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and eastern DRC.

From the Geita plant, emulsion was supplied to stone a quarry operation for road construction in Uganda.

The Legadembi Plant was built and commissioned in 2002 in Ethiopia. This plant produced bulk explosives for the Legadembi Open Pit. During 2009, an underground gold decline shaft operation was established and the UBS emulsion is now also manufactured at the Legadembi Plant.

Since the establishment of the East African hub, AEL has developed a reliable network of supply logistic links from Tanduma, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa and Djibouti throughout East Africa.

AEL East Africa has a staff contingent 70 employees, with 90% being local citizens from several of

the countries within the region.