Rauf Osterman is a mining engineer with 27 years experience in most facets of Drill and Blast. Rauf started his career with Nitro Consult in Stockholm, Sweden working with blasting in sensitive environments. Rauf’s primary area of expertise is Tunnelling, Construction, vibration management, UG mining and Surface hard rock mining. Rauf was involved either as a consultant or a construction manager in all 4 of the recent major tunnelling projects in Stockholm. Rauf has worked in 8 different countries with diverse experience across all types of blasting ranging from surface coal cast blasting to demolition, drawbell blasting to sculpture blasting. Since moving to Australia in 2004, Rauf has mainly been involved in underground and hard rock open cut projects. Rauf was instrumental in the introduction of development string charging, long rounds and rapid development into Australia. He also holds the patents for vertical string charging, and the circular pre-split rise.