More than 50 attendees made the trip to Sydney, including key customers, university experts, consultants and other industry representatives.

The event was opened by Minova’s global chief executive, Michael Reich, and Asia-Pacific and Africa regional manager Karen Stoffels.

Following plant tours of Minova’s Smithfield and new Arndell Park facilities, attendees were treated to keynote addresses from Minova global vice-president of mining engineering and technology Dr Steve Tadolini on global strata support, and from Carroll Partners International executive chairman Allan Carroll on the influences and future Australian opportunities in China.

The new facility is designed to produce rock bolts for the underground coal sector and uses multiple industrial robots in the manufacturing process.

The new technology will lead to cost savings, improved efficiency and superior quality control.

The new facility is initially targeting production of more than 2 million rock bolts a year, with the potential to increase capacity to more than 5 million rock bolts per annum.

While Minova is well known as a supplier for its chemical-based products to the coal industry, the Orica subsidiary moved into Australia’s rock bolt market after acquiring Sydney-based Strata Control Systems in May 2008.

SCS steel products manufacturing manager Mark Lumley told ILN the new plant would produce one bolt every 10 seconds when at full production, reaching 7500 per day.

Minova Australia coal business manager Matthew Berry said, “I’ve been to some competitor plants in Australia and I’ve been to some of our plants in Europe and the US, and out of all the plants I have seen there is nothing even remotely close to the set-up here.”

The new facility was designed with input from Minova’s US bolt-producing operations, while Berry said the funding strength of the company ensured the plant used the best possible manufacturing methods.

With the official launch, Berry said Minova was aiming to prove it was a credible source of rock bolts for coal mining and show it had a state-of-the-art facility to guarantee supply and quality.

The automated manufacturing process lends itself to quality control, providing computer data to determine strength curves and perform analysis and other testing methods.

The new facility also removes a lot of the manual tasks associated with typical bolt manufacturing.

By using the industrial robots, Lumley said the beauty of the new set-up was that the first person to touch the bolt would be the miner who put it into the roof.

Another part of the site tour was to show the research and development side of the operation, which has the bolts tested for rock conditions found underground.

Berry said there were several key R&D projects underway, but any new products launched for the coal sector would be 12-18 months away.

Minova also plans to distribute its plate and resin products from the new Arndell Park facility.