EPC Groupe–Sabodala contract: blasting capacity and slope control insights for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on International Mining – News
30 Second Briefing
EPC Groupe, through EPC Mineex Sénégal, has secured a five-year explosives supply and services contract with Endeavour’s Sabodala gold mine in Senegal, valued at about €10 million per year at full run rate. The deal covers bulk explosives and blasting support for one of West Africa’s largest open-pit gold operations, signalling a step-up in local emulsion manufacturing, on-bench services and blast design capability. For mine planners and geotechnical teams, the contract points to stable high-volume blasting capacity, supporting consistent fragmentation and slope performance over the medium term.
Technical Brief
- Contract structured as explosives supply plus “associated services”, indicating bundled blast design and field support.
- Five-year initial term gives mine planning teams medium-term certainty for drill-and-blast cost baselines.
- Annual contract value of ~€10 million implies large, steady explosives draw aligned with multi-pit production.
- On-bench services scope likely covers charging, tie-in, and QA/QC of blast patterns under mine supervision.
- Centralised explosives provider reduces interface risk between emulsion manufacture, transport, storage and blast execution.
Our Take
Taken together with the €23 million, three-year blasting contract EPC Mineex Sénégal won at the Boto gold mine, this Sabodala award signals that EPC Groupe is becoming a default explosives and blasting provider for large-scale gold operations in Senegal.
For Endeavour at the Sabodala mine, locking in a specialist contractor on a roughly €10 million-per-year basis likely helps stabilise unit mining costs in a jurisdiction where fuel, labour, and import logistics can otherwise make drill-and-blast costs volatile.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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