Nelson Brothers, Inc. 50 Years of Growth and Service to the Coal Mining Industry t’s humbling for both of us,” said Bill Nelson, speaking for himself and brother, Tony, the two principals in Nelson Brothers Inc., “but as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary this year, we realized we’ve managed this company longer than our founders, our Daddy and uncle, Dugan and Olen Nelson.” “IThere’s a sound basis for the evident pride Bill and Tony take in what the founding brothers of the Nelson company started and what the managing brothers have accomplished. From two brothers with a single truck, Nelson Brothers Inc. has grown to more than 550 employees working through eight major facilities in 10 states and today is the country’s largest suppliers of ANFO (ammonium nitrate fuel oil) explosives and ANFO services to the North American coal mining industry. From the base laid and developed by their father and uncle, in the 26 years since “Daddy’s” death the two brothers—Bill as chief executive offi cer and Tony as president—have overseen a company that has grown more than tenfold in size and today supplies much of the ANFO used in American surface mining. “The history of the company can be divided into two 25-year periods,” Bill explained: “The fi rst 25 as development under our father and the second 25 as growth and expansion under By Art Sanda the sons. But even before then…” 12 Coal People Magazine www.coalpeople.com According to Bill, Tony’s senior by 11 years, “Prior to ammonium when I reached school age the family settled down in Parrish, nitrate (AN) explosives, the explosive of choice was nitro Alabama and Daddy worked as a mechanic. dynamite, the manufacture of which was dominated by duPont, Hercules, Atlas, Austin Powder and others. In fact, the duPont “In 1956, small coal mines were trying to use AN instead of chemical giant of today was built on nitro dynamite. All these big dynamite. They would mix AN with diesel fuel, 94:6, making guys had large dynamite plants all around the country. ANFO, ammonium nitrate fuel oil, explosives. Small operators in Alabama who were doing this kept telling Daddy that this was Nelson Brothers, Inc. “In the mid-late 1940s, there was the Texas City disaster, going to change the whole business into something else and a terrible disaster. On April 16, 1947 the French-registered that he should get involved in it somehow. SS Grandcamp was being loaded with 17 million pounds of ammonium nitrate when a fi re started onboard. Standard “At this time,” Bill continued, “ANFO was about 20 percent the procedure onboard ship in case of a fi re was to close all the cost of dynamite, so operators had a real reason to have it hatches to deprive the fi re of oxygen which, in this case, was work. But it had a way to go. Because ANFO was not as dense exactly the wrong thing to do. When nitrate burns, it creates its as dynamite—meaning less of a bang—the boreholes had to own oxygen. By enclosing that fi re, they created a huge bomb, be drilled closer together, meaning the drilling of a lot more and it exploded with substantial loss of life. There were nearly holes for the same oomph. And, because it was not waterproof, 8,500 victims. ANFO could not be used in wet weather or wet holes, the result of ground water or seepage. The Big Guys, the big dynamite “As unfortunate and tragic an incident as it was, having seen companies, said it wouldn’t work, no way, not in the fi eld, and what nitrate could do, people became interested in ammonium stayed away from it. But all across the country, entrepreneurs nitrate explosives. That’s not the only reason for the interest, strived to make it work. obviously, but it was a large reason,” Bill said. “At that time, Daddy wasn’t interested in considering the Moving to a corner of the room with his arms extended, Bill manufacturing end of the business, but he was interested in animated: “Here were the big guys—duPont, Hercules, Atlas, getting involved in the delivery end of it,” Bill said. “Problem Austin Powder—all in one corner manufacturing nitro-based was, Daddy didn’t have the money for the down payment on his dynamite; Big Business, plants all over the country with a fi rst truck, but his brother, Olen, did. And that year, 1956, they couple of thousand people employed at each one of them. formed Nelson Brothers. They were producing all different size explosives being used all over America, even into the early and mid-1950s. It wasn’t until “I was nine years old at the time,” Bill recalled. “Like any kid, I then that real investigation into the use of AN-based explosives always was following my daddy around everywhere he’d let me. began. I always was in his shop sweeping-up, cleaning tools, whatever, and that carried over to the explosives business.” “In surface mining during this pre-ANFO period, sticks of dynamite up to fi ve inches in diameter and weighing up to 30 lbs a stick continued were stacked by the ton into boreholes. Up until mechanization of underground mining in the early 1960s, explosives also were used in underground mining, dynamites specially formulated to reduce fumes in the underground environment. “Dynamite was both dense and water proof, two things that early AN-based explosives were not. The Big Guys would say: ‘You need those two elements if you are going to have a successful blast.’ And they had a point. AN explosives were less dense than the specifi c gravity of water, which would cause it to fl oat in a wet bore hole. Neither were the AN explosives waterproof, effecting their reliability,” Bill said. “Around the time we are talking, Daddy had been a welder on Tony Nelson, Kathy Robb, Bill Nelson Kathy is a Nelson pipeline construction jobs, causing our family to move three or Brothers employee at the Charleston, WV offi ce four times a year as Daddy followed the work. In 1953 or so, Tony (extreme left) and Bill (fourth from left) at the Nelson Brothers’ Gillette, Wyoming 50 Year Anniversary Celebration 12 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2006 Buyer’s Guide 13 Nelson continued Initially, that business was with Spencer Chemical Company, strictly delivering the ammonium nitrate in bags to a mine’s storage building or trailer. Miners would take the AN bags to the boreholes, tear off a corner and, using a dipper, measure out so much diesel fuel for each bag from a five gallon can, creating ANFO. ANFO, unconfined, is quite stable and simply will burn when a match is put to it. In order to have it explode, an initiator first was placed in the hole and then the ammonium nitrate and fuel oil were combined on site and poured into the boreholes. As Bill described it, it was a very crude operation in the beginning. (L-R) Larry Gilmore, President of International Society of Explo- “In 1960, Monsanto approached Daddy to haul for them, as well sives Engineers, presenting to Bill and Tony a plaque on behalf as warehousing AN from their large plant in Luling, Louisiana. of ISEE in congratulations of the 50 Year Anniversary. Spencer, which later was purchased by Gulf Oil Chemicals, got Presentation made at the Celebration Reception on Oct. 12. wind of the deal and fired Daddy and Uncle Olen, so they came to an agreement with Monsanto. “The secret to manufacturing good ANFO, they discovered, was in the 6 to 94 mix, or to be precise, 5.7 to 94.3,” Tony interjected. “Monsanto would ship boxcars of bagged AN, Daddy would “At 5.7 percent fuel oil, the ANFO achieves maximum efficiency. warehouse it and then truck it to the mines as needed. The way At 4 percent, you lose 12 percent of the energy and, at 3 percent, they were adding fuel to the AN at the mines was haphazard at it’s only 80 percent efficient. best. They were adding so much fuel to each bag and, if they began running out of fuel toward the end, well they just would “At the job site, all the miners had to do was put a primer adjust the amount they were adding,” Bill said. assembly into the borehole, open the bag and load the hole with the ANFO. This was 10 times quicker and gave the exact “When the mines asked why someone didn’t build a plant and amount and quality of ANFO the customer needed. Everything do the mixing there, Daddy and Uncle Olen did. That was in the company has done since has been central to how more cost 1962 in Parrish. As it turned out, they couldn’t have picked a effectively AN-based explosives can be used,” Tony said. better location, dead center to the Alabama coal business. It just happened that way. “That accuracy, mixing in the bag, was impossible at best,” he continued. “Additionally, AN comes in prill form, like small 14 Coal People Magazine www.coalpeople.com BBs. When those BBs were loaded into watchmaker who couldn’t see the the sacks, the empty space between digital age coming. them—about 40 percent by volume— was what was creating the low density. “Our first 25 years were all based on To solve problems of low density and no ANFO, HD-ANFO and bulk ANFO, water resistance, they took the AN out everything was based around improving of the bags, ran it through an agricultural the manufacture, shipping and use mill and ground the prills into almost a of the product; making it increasingly powder,” Tony said.