Irish explosives market set to be blown apart

IRISH Industrial Explosives’ dominance of the €40 million-plus explosives market is to come under threat from a rival consortium who want to built a €10m production facility in Munster.

Irish Industrial Explosives, 50% owned by the giant international building materials group CRH, dominates the lucrative Irish explosives market.

Cork businessman Louis O’Regan of Aggregates Supplies and Transport is looking at sites which may be suitable for the construction of the first new explosives factory to be built in Ireland since 1964.

One of the sites being considered by Mr O’Regan is the former Mitsui Denman chemical production site at Little Island, County Cork which closed earlier this year with the loss of 92 jobs.

He said the availability of 73 acres for an EPA licensed landfill site at the Little Island location has an added attraction for the transport and waste side of his AST business, although: “We’re looking at a number of locations and one site in Tipperary is also being considered.”

Mr O’Regan said it is planned to develop the new factory with DuPont subsidiary ETI Explosives.

ETI Export Inc designs, fabricates and sells modular explosive plants and equipment to international markets.

They also sell and license the manufacturing technology and ETI Exports’s Walt Partridge said they are very interested in setting up an Irish manufacturing facility, adding: “Once a site has been identified we’ll be coming over to talk with your Government people.”

Mr O’Regan said ETI have already invested in a Portuguese facility and said the target market of any new Irish facility would include Britain and mainland Europe. He estimated the British market worth for the type of explosive he plans to produce to be in excess of 200m a year with 2,000 quarries alone.

“If we were to get just 20% of the Irish market we would have a viable business,” he said. “It’s hard to say when we will start up as there will be a lot planning and other obstacles to overcome.

"We’re determined to press ahead and by making our intentions public at this early stage we’re showing we’ve nothing to hide.

“While an explosive plant requires top class security it is no different to other chemical production plants.”