The mobile plant designed and built by EXPAL to carry out the project has a cold detonation chamber unique in the world. Safety and complying with European Environmental standards have been parameters in the development and building of the facilities and the design of its processes, though specifically for the destruction of this type of ammunition. This solution enables to minimize the risks and the costs of the transport. The facilities can be relocated to execute other projects for this kind of ammunition in other places. Since the opening in 2014, EXPAL has destroyed more than three million PFM-1 type cluster munition, around 90% of the stockpile of Belarus. The end of the project, with the demobilization phase, is scheduled for May 2017.
EXPAL’s specialized technicians trained the local staff to carry out the works with the maximum guarantee and safety standards. The most dangerous processes are executed without the direct performance of the employees, with initiation systems provided by the parent company MAXAM.
The project is the result of an international tender launched by the European Union that EXPAL was awarded. The EC’s support for the destruction of Belarus stockpiles of PFM-1 landmines is linked with the Government of Belarus`s ratification of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their destruction. This convention entered into force in 1999. Belarus and many other countries signed this treaty to destroy this and other kind of cluster munition.
EXPAL is the global leader in demilitarization solutions with more than 40 years’ experience and over 1,000 different references demilitarized for Nato and different Armed Forces.