Dyno Nobel is a manufacturer of
explosives
An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...
. It is a wholly owned
subsidiary
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...
of
Incitec Pivot Limited operating in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...
,
Mexico
Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...
,
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...
,
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...
and
Turkey
Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
.
They provide the explosives used in
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
and
metal mining,
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...
and construction as well as pipeline and
seismic
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...
used for oil and
gas exploration.
The types of explosives manufactured includes
ammonium nitrate
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, but does not form hydrates. It is predominantly us ...
,
dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...
, electric, non electric and electronic
detonator
A detonator is a device used to make an explosive or explosive device explode. Detonators come in a variety of types, depending on how they are initiated (chemically, mechanically, or electrically) and details of their inner working, which of ...
s,
detonating cord and
cast boosters. They also produce surface and underground loading systems.
In 2012 Dyno Nobel had over a million tons of
ammonium nitrate
Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, but does not form hydrates. It is predominantly us ...
capacity and over 30 manufacturing facilities on two continents.
History

Dyno Nobel's history dates back to 1865 with Swedish dynamite inventor
Alfred Nobel
Alfred Bernhard Nobel ( ; ; 21 October 1833 – 10 December 1896) was a Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer, and businessman. He is known for inventing dynamite, as well as having bequeathed his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes. He also m ...
.
The invention of the
safety fuse
The safety fuse is a type of fuse (explosive), fuse invented and patented by English inventor William Bickford (1774–1834), William Bickford in 1831. Originally it consisted of a "tube" of gunpowder surrounded by a waterproofed varnished jute "r ...
by
William Bickford in 1831 was also instrumental in the company's development.
Following
IK Partners’ (formerly Industri Kapital) public-to-private acquisition of Dyno ASA from the Oslo Stock Exchange in August 2000, Dyno’s chemical business was merged with Neste Chemicals to form Dynea Oy, also controlled by IK.
Dyno Nobel ASA combined with the Ensign-Bickford Company in 2003 and were restructured again in 2005.
By 2007 they had over 3,500 employees and 36 manufacturing facilities.
In 2008 Australian agrochemical maker Incitec Pivot Limited (an ASX Top 50 company) bought Dyno Nobel for A$3.3 billion.
After the coal company
Peabody Energy
Peabody Energy is a coal mining company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. Its primary business consists of the mining, sale, and distribution of coal, which is purchased for use in electricity generation and steelmaking. Peabody also marke ...
filed for bankruptcy in April 2016, Dyno Nobel was listed as their largest creditor being owed more than A$4.3 million.
Company organization
Dyno Nobel is organized into two groups, Dyno Americas and Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific.
Dyno Nobel Americas (DNA)
Dyno Nobel Americas (DNA) serves North America and Chile.
DNA also supplies nitrogen based products to agricultural and industrial chemical markets.
Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific (DNAP)
Dyno Nobel Asia Pacific (DNAP) supplies the
mining industry
Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a la ...
in Australia, Europe, China, Africa, Turkey, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. In particular, DNAP supplies surface and underground mining in the thermal coal,
metallurgical coal
Metallurgical coal or coking coal is a grade of coal that can be used to produce good-quality coke. Coke is an essential fuel and reactant in the blast furnace process for primary steelmaking. The demand for metallurgical coal is highly coupled ...
,
iron ore
Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...
and other metals sectors.
Sustainability
In 2010, Dyno Nobel's owners, Incitec Pivot Limited, approved a sustainability strategy that extends to workplace health and safety, environmental impacts,
resource efficiency Resource efficiency is the maximising of the supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively, with minimum wasted (natural) resource expenses. It means using the ...
, community impact and engagement, as well as labor practices and products and services. In the 2012 Sustainability Report IPL states, ''“
Sustainable growth
Sustainable development is an approach to growth and human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.United Nations General Assembly (1987)''Report of th ...
requires us to balance our economic performance with our environmental and social responsibilities which include being a good corporate citizen and operating ethically.”''
Health and safety
In 2012, IPL reported that the Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate was 1.45, an increase of 17% from the previous year. In response to this, the IPL Board and Executive Team implemented new positions and structures in the company's leadership. This was done to support a new
Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) strategy put in place to eliminate
workplace injuries, illnesses and environmental incidents.''
Environment
In 2012, IPL established reduction targets for its Australian manufacturing operations for
greenhouse gas emissions
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities intensify the greenhouse effect. This contributes to climate change. Carbon dioxide (), from burning fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, oil, and natural gas, is the main cause of climate chan ...
,
water use
A water footprint shows the extent of water use in relation to Consumption (economics), consumption by people. The water footprint of an individual, community, or business is defined as the total volume of fresh water used to produce the goods an ...
,
natural gas
Natural gas (also fossil gas, methane gas, and gas) is a naturally occurring compound of gaseous hydrocarbons, primarily methane (95%), small amounts of higher alkanes, and traces of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide and helium ...
use for energy, and waste to landfill. They claim they are working to establish a baseline for future efficiency targets through gathering data from the global operations for
energy use
Energy consumption is the amount of energy used.
Biology
In the body, energy consumption is part of energy homeostasis. It derived from food energy. Energy consumption in the body is a product of the basal metabolic rate and the physical activity ...
, water use and
waste
Waste are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor Value (economics), economic value. A wast ...
. They investigated the possibility of replacing the current materials used to manufacture
bulking agents with recycled or renewable ones such as
bio-fuels and
green waste
Green waste, also known as biological waste, is any organic waste that can be composted. It is most usually composed of refuse from gardens such as grass clippings or leaves, and domestic or industrial kitchen wastes. Green waste does not inclu ...
. The company carried out trials where
waste oil
Waste oil is defined as any petroleum-based or synthetic oil that, through contamination, has become unsuitable for its original purpose due to the presence of impurities or loss of original properties.
Differentiating between "waste oil" and "us ...
was used in their fuel phase emulsion explosive product. They also researched ways to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from explosive blasting by using different products or blasting techniques.
Recruitment and training
During 2012, the number of females employed by the company increased from 17% to 21%. The number of female graduates employed through the graduate recruitment programme increased from none in 2012 to five in 2013.
In comparison, the national average for women in the workplace in the United States was 47%(2010) and 46% in Australia (2013).
References
External links
Official Website
{{Authority control
Chemical companies of the United States
Companies based in Salt Lake County, Utah
Explosives
Mining companies of Australia
2008 mergers and acquisitions
Cottonwood Heights, Utah
Norwegian companies established in 1865
Chemical companies established in 1865