Image: Mike (right) and driller Barry Wheeler discuss the merits of a good hole collar.
Q&M magazine invited industry veteran Mike Henderson to discuss his early
career in the extraction industry and later, in 1997, the establishment of RedBull Powder Company
with business partner Peter Shapiro.
Fifty years in an industry certainly brings time for reflection. Hard work combined with a lot of fun and wonderful relationships with great people has led to so much success over the years. It’s been quite a journey!
I had an unorthodox path into quarrying. I hated my first job as a trainee accountant at Lime & Marble in Nelson.
One Friday in 1974 I got summoned to the boss’ office after a blazing row with the office lady. I expected getting the sack but couldn’t believe my luck when Jock said, “Mike you wouldn’t be an accountant’s arsehole. How would you like to go out in the field with Terry the geologist?”
Ripping my tie off as I spoke, I replied, “Hell, yes! When?”
“Monday!”
That started a 50-year career in quarrying and explosives! I spent some time with Terry prospecting the Tasman and West Coast area for gold and proving the extent of L&M’s (Lime and Marble) three quarries at Ngarua, Golden Bay Dolomite, and Murchison Lime. I went on to sit my B Grade, then A Grade Quarry Manager Certificates.
Getting top marks in the country was a great ‘up-yours’ to the manager who thought I couldn’t be an accountant. Maybe he was right!
I was a very young 23 year old Quarry Manager at Murchison Lime, and subsequently at Ngarua on the Takaka Hill, where I learnt valuable people skills and responsibility that carried me through my career.
Bruce Hayhow at ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) gave me my break into explosives with a position as ICI’s Tech Services Rep in the North Island. So, in November 1979 my wife, Chris, and I moved to Auckland and never really left.
The explosives industry in the 1970s was very different from today. ICI (now Orica) was a supplier of products, not a contractor, and our role was to train customers in the use of explosives.
In those days packages of dynamite and gelignite were ordered by the quarry, put on the train and railed from the Papakura station. They could take two weeks to reach their final destination, some getting dropped off to sit on a rail siding until the quarry got around to collecting it!
New Zealand was a very trusting place in those days! Farmers, with no training, qualification or licence, would go to PGG or Dalgety’s to collect a couple of boxes of gelignite to blow tree stumps or drains down on the farm!
This led to a time of great change in the explosives product range. Gelignite and dynamite, ANFO delivered in drums, cap and fuse, or electric det initiation of hand-loaded holes drilled by air-track drills. Watergel cartridges were introduced in the 1990s followed by bulk emulsion. The evolution to digitally controlled blasting has revolutionised blasting and we were proud to lead that transition in the 2000s.
After eight years at ICI, I left to join Kaipara Excavators as project manager and we opened East Tamaki Quarry in Auckland to produce armour rock, which we barged from East Tamaki down the Tamaki River to Whangaparaoa for the Gulf Harbour Marina.
We also built the Pine Harbour Marina, mined coal in Huntly and alluvial gold near Greymouth.
RedBull Powder Company
In 1990 I went out on my own and started Explosives Consultants and contracted blasting services in many quarries. Peter Shapiro and John Russell were business partners providing drill and blast services in the same market. Peter is a great visionary and saw an opportunity for the small operators to amalgamate and to establish RedBull Powder Company to challenge the monopoly held by Orica.
And off we went on this amazing journey! We took them on and succeeded! We built up to a majority market share by being laser-focused on service and relationships. We enabled our people to learn, grow and build their careers and we were rewarded with loyalty and success. There were many key people through the years, but names like Tristen Bradley, Wayne Baird, Bev McLean, Glenn Ross and Alwyn Brown along with the support of our wives, Chris and Shirley, were some of the key contributors.
What a ride it was!
In the early years we imported packaged watergel explosives from Maxam (a Spanish company in Australia), and sourced ammonium nitrate from France.
In the late ’90s we purchased a redundant bulk watergel plant and the old bowl truck from Macraes Mine.
The early support of Ian Wedding, Bill Bond (Holcim) and Allan Drinkrow (Kaipara) gave us places to store, manufacture and supply.
And that’s how we entered the market.
We had an early skirmish with Red Bull Energy Drinks. We had registered our brand in New Zealand in the year before the arrival of the drinks company. They tried to have a go at us, but we could demonstrate that the name arose from a play on our use of Spanish explosives and the link to the Spanish fighting bull rather than a copy of their name.
We eventually sold them our 0800 number and agreed not to compete with them in certain patent classes and we have co-existed in the market ever since.
The RedBull Powder Company was established in 1997. In its first 10 years we built a very strong presence in the North Island quarry and construction markets. Our big break came in 2012 with the winning of the multi-year Macraes Mine supply contract to provide about 7000 tonnes of bulk emulsion per year (at that time) and all the associated initiation products, underground explosives, on-site manufacture and labour.
This contract became pivotal to our domination of the New Zealand explosives industry.
Macraes also gave us our biggest achievement and proudest moment. From the date of signing the Macraes contract, we had just five months to start on-site supply. We raised the capital, built the emulsion plant, had MPU trucks constructed and delivered, imported 200 containers of various DG material from eight different countries, employed and trained the staff and we were ready to start on time!
Many pundits may have bet against this, but we delivered on our sternest test.
With our solid position in the quarry market, the success of Macraes and our position of majority market share, it was time for me and Peter to consider our future.
Exit and succession plan
As part of a long-term exit and succession plan, we elected to sell a majority stake in the business.
After being courted by both American and Chinese companies, we elected to partner with the Yahua Industrial Group in its first quest for outbound Chinese investment in this field.
They were committed to “learn the Kiwi way” and for five years we retained equity interest in their New Zealand business.
The Kopako Industrial Reserve
When we sold RedBull, Peter and I sold the operating company, but we retained the land. This formed the basis of our next venture, this time in property and farming. We formed the Kopako Industrial Reserve as a facility for hazardous goods and activities and for operations with unique isolation requirements.
We now own a large rural property which is home to two explosives manufacturers, a rocket engine test centre and, recently, a significant solar farm and part of a coal mine!
All very interesting, but most of my time nowadays is spent supporting our site manager Stuart Morgan with the 400-head beef finishing operation over the site.
Who said retirement would be boring!
Blasting innovations
It is interesting today that many may have forgotten, or never knew, that in the early 2000s RedBull was a global pioneer in the early adoption of programmable electronic detonators to control ground vibration from blasting.
Sasol Industries of South Africa was the manufacturer of this new product and we programmed the detonators to accurate millisecond timing. At Martha Mine we found a delay period which suited the rock characteristics and then developed a system to ‘daisy-chain’ multiple 70-hole blast panels together. Larger timing intervals between panels allowed ground energy to dissipate to ensure vibration compliance.
Success! This was a global first and the industry had at last learned how to predict and control ground vibration in open pit mining. Martha Mine went from 70-hole to 1500-hole blasts in the open pit – and the neighbours and regulators were kept happy!
This success gained global attention and Peter presented the findings to the International Society of Explosives Engineers.
We applied our learnings at Kalgoorlie gold mines and Colorado coal mines. Sensing a new competitor in this specific field of explosives technology, Orica purchased Sasol’s patents and production capability and also RedBull’s distribution agreements in Australasia and North America. This was the end of our cutting-edge and most innovative period.
A lasting partnership
Peter and I have enjoyed a 30-year business partnership, and it continues to endure and succeed today.
We have always recognised, respected and valued each other’s different strengths and contributions. I’m a projects guy – “I get shit done!” Peter’s vision and strategic thinking has always showed us the path. What a partnership it has been!
For any aspiring youngsters, I would encourage them to grab an opportunity with both hands! For anyone who loves the outdoors and likes a sense of adventure it’s an amazing industry. There is so much to learn with technology at the fore – drones, surveying, chemistry, drilling, excitement, travel. Other than space, it’s got to be number one! And it’s good not being an accountant!