Explosives Manufacturing (U.S.) — Industry Primer

NAICS 2022 code 32592 — Explosives Manufacturing (NAICS industry, 5-digit)

---

1. Overview

Explosives manufacturing is a small, tightly held U.S. industry that sits at the very front of the physical economy: almost nothing gets mined, quarried, or dug through hard rock without it. Ninety-plus percent of the tonnage is a cheap ammonium-nitrate-based product, so the industry is best understood as an industrial-chemicals-plus-logistics business tied to how much rock the country moves — not as a maker of dramatic one-off blasts. For an investor, demand is a leveraged bet on mining and construction volumes, plus a fast-growing defense-energetics tailwind, wrapped in an unusually deep regulatory moat.

This is a pass-through level. At the 5-digit NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) tier, code 32592 contains exactly one 6-digit child industry: 325920 — Explosives Manufacturing. The two codes cover the same establishments, the same products, and the same federal statistics. This page gives the level's own ground-truth figures and orients you; for the full treatment — scope, product mix, company-by-company investable universe, economics, regulation, and outlook — read the 325920 leaf primer.

Ways in. There is no meaningful U.S.-listed pure-play. The cleanest public exposures are foreign-listed: Orica (Australia), the newly independent Dyno Nobel (Australia, but with a large U.S. manufacturing base), Solar Industries (India), and Chile's Sigdo Koppers/Enaex. Both Dyno Nobel and Orica sponsor U.S. ADRs (DNLZY and OCLDY respectively), providing a domestic trading route [1][2]. LSB Industries (NYSE: LXU) offers indirect upstream exposure through U.S. ammonium-nitrate production for explosives manufacturers [3]. The largest privately held U.S. names — Austin Powder and Spain's MAXAM — are reachable only through private markets.

---

2. What's inside — the child industries

NAICS 32592 has a single child:

In the NAICS hierarchy, a 5-digit industry either splits into several 6-digit "national" industries or, where no finer breakdown exists, carries a single 6-digit child that simply repeats it. Explosives is the latter case: the classification system saw no need to subdivide it, so 32592 equals 325920. There is no aggregation to do and no sibling industries to weigh — the value, the companies, and the risks all live in the one child.

Scope in brief: establishments that primarily make explosives — bulk blasting agents (ANFO, ammonium nitrate/fuel oil), emulsion and water-gel explosives, dynamite, technical- (explosive-) grade ammonium nitrate, TNT (trinitrotoluene), nitroglycerin, and initiating systems such as blasting caps, detonators, and detonating cord. Ammunition, fireworks, matches, and fertilizer-grade ammonium nitrate are classified elsewhere [4]. See the child primer for the full inclusion/exclusion list.

---

3. Size (this level's rollup figures)

Because the level has one child, its rollup figures are the child's figures — no summing across sub-industries. U.S. federal statistics for NAICS 32592:

All figures above are drawn from our ingested ground-truth federal stats for this level; none are suppressed. For physical scale, the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) reports the U.S. used just under 3.2 billion pounds of explosives in 2022; roughly 9,300 federal explosives licensees and permittees operate across commercial explosives and fireworks combined [8]. ATF reported 9,185 active licenses and permits in FY2024, including 2,036 manufacturer licenses [9]. The most recent detailed USGS volume series (2019) reported U.S. consumption of 1.73 million metric tons, with coal consuming 961,000 metric tons, quarrying and nonmetal mining 254,000, metal mining 155,000, construction 306,000 and other uses 53,000 [10].

Undercount caveats (carried from the child, and they matter here):

1. Defense energetics is largely off-book. Most U.S. military explosives and propellants are made at government-owned Army ammunition plants (e.g. Holston, Radford) run under contract by prime contractors. That output — and a multibillion-dollar capacity rebuild now under way — sits mostly outside this private-industry line.
2. The code understates blasting's footprint. With only 48 firms, the standalone industry misses the on-site blasting services (blast design, on-bench mixing, electronic initiation) that the majors book in broader mining-services or chemicals segments. IME's claim that commercial explosives support more than 60,000 jobs and over $19 billion of annual U.S. economic contribution expressly concerns the broader value chain; it is not NAICS 325920 employment or revenue [11].
3. Concentration, not fragmentation. These are small counts because the industry is a concentrated club dominated by a few large, mostly foreign-owned producers — not because coverage is thin.

---

4. Investable universe (where value concentrates)

With a single child, value concentrates exactly where the child primer places it — there are no other sub-industries to spread across. The short version:

• No pure-play U.S.-listed explosives maker exists. The cleanest public exposures are foreign-listed: Orica (ASX: ORI; OTC ADR: OCLDY) [2], the newly independent Dyno Nobel (ASX: DNL; U.S. ADR: DNLZY) [1], Solar Industries (India), and Chile's Sigdo Koppers (parent of Enaex).
• LSB Industries (NYSE: LXU) offers indirect upstream exposure through U.S. ammonium-nitrate production for explosives manufacturers [3].
• The largest U.S. domestic producer, Austin Powder (Ohio), is private — industry research estimates roughly $1.4bn revenue, ~4,800 employees, and about 12% of U.S. industry revenue; in July 2024, American Industrial Partners made a strategic investment alongside existing owners [12][13]. Spain's MAXAM is also private, reachable only through private markets.
• Defense energetics is not a pure play; exposure lives inside prime contractors (General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems) and specialists such as Chemring.

Tickers, revenue scales, and share estimates for each name are in the 325920 leaf primer, Section 4.

---

5. How the money works

Owners make money in three stacked layers, and the mix is moving up the value chain: (1) bulk product — ANFO is a low-margin chemicals spread business, ammonium nitrate versus natural-gas-linked input cost, usually sold on formula/pass-through contracts; (2) initiating systems — detonators and especially programmable electronic detonators, far higher margin; and (3) technical blasting services — managing the blast at the customer's bench, the stickiest and fastest-growing tier.

Operating benchmarks. Dyno Nobel Americas reported FY2025 revenue of US$976.5 million with a 22.1% EBITDA margin and 12.4% EBIT margin [14]. Orica reported FY2025 North America EBIT of A$212.2 million, 15% above the prior year [15]. These regional figures include Canada, services, and adjacent products — they are valuable comparables but not pure U.S. NAICS margins.

The P&L is driven by volume (tonnes of rock moved), plant capacity utilization, and delivered-cost logistics — not by the headline commodity price. Full detail is in the child primer, Section 5.

---

6. Demand drivers

The same demand drivers apply at this level as at the child, because they are the same industry: mining (copper, gold, iron ore, and increasingly lithium and other critical minerals as ore grades fall and pits deepen) is the biggest engine; quarrying and aggregates for concrete and asphalt; construction, infrastructure, and demolition; a smaller oil-and-gas slice; and a newly powerful defense driver as military demand for TNT, propellants, and high explosives surges with the rearmament cycle.

Thermal coal is the principal structural headwind. Dyno Nobel reported that Powder River Basin thermal coal represented 14% of Dyno Nobel Americas revenue and 4.6% of total group revenue in FY2024, while noting that this exposure had already been declining [16]. Orica likewise cited lower U.S. thermal-coal demand in FY2025 [17]. Demand is cyclical with mining and construction but structurally supported by the falling-ore-grade trend.

---

7. Regulation

Explosives are among the most heavily regulated legal products in the U.S. supply chain — and the rules are identical at this level and its child. Anyone manufacturing must hold a Federal Explosives License (FEL) from the ATF; under the Safe Explosives Act of 2002, applicants and "responsible persons" undergo background checks, employees are screened, and storage magazines are inspected [18]. Transport falls under DOT/PHMSA and FMCSA hazmat rules (Class 1 materials, placarding, special routing, hazmat-endorsed drivers); workplace and mine safety under OSHA and MSHA; and ammonium nitrate draws extra anti-diversion scrutiny. The compliance burden is expensive and slow — and is itself a durable barrier to entry. See the child primer for the full regulatory map.

---

8. Consolidation

The U.S. commercial market is a concentrated oligopoly, and the concentration statistics are this level's own ground truth: the top four firms account for 53.3% of industry revenue, the top eight for 76%, and the top twenty for 95.9%, with a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI, a standard concentration gauge) of about 1,014 — moderately concentrated with a dominant top tier [5]. The defining recent structural event was Incitec Pivot's 2025 demerger, which left Dyno Nobel as a focused listed pure-play [19]. In June 2026, Orica completed its acquisition of the remaining interest in the Nelson Brothers U.S. explosives joint venture, adding manufacturing and distribution capacity [20]. Entry is rare; the action is in vertical integration and technology, not fragmentation. Full discussion in the child primer, Section 8.

---

9. Risks

The risk set is the child's, because it is the same industry: cyclicality with mining and construction volumes; input-cost/energy exposure through natural-gas-derived ammonium nitrate; input supply risk — customers cannot tolerate missed blasts, and ammonium-nitrate or ammonia outages can interrupt mines and quarries (as the late-2025 CF Industries force majeure affecting Orica's North American business showed [21][22]); structural coal decline in the legacy demand base; catastrophic safety and liability exposure, where a single incident can threaten the license; regulatory tightening and security concerns around ammonium-nitrate diversion and a tight hazmat-driver pool [23]; foreign-ownership/FX friction for U.S. investors buying the offshore-listed majors; and thin regional supply, where a single plant outage or detonator shortage can ripple into customers' production [24].

---

10. How to invest & outlook

Because 32592 equals 325920, the how-to-invest and outlook are the child's in full — nothing is aggregated away. In brief: with no U.S. pure-play, public-market investors buy the foreign-listed majors — Orica for the broadest global-plus-North-America commercial exposure, Dyno Nobel for a focused pure-play with a large U.S. base, Solar Industries for combined industrial-explosives and defense-energetics growth, and Sigdo Koppers for Enaex via a diversified parent. LSB Industries (NYSE: LXU) provides upstream input exposure [3]. Defense energetics — the hottest sub-theme — is generally accessed through prime contractors, since new U.S. capacity is largely government-owned/contractor-operated.

The forward story: a government-funded defense reshoring pulse — the U.S. had no domestic TNT production since 1986; new capacity now includes a ~$435M Army TNT plant in Kentucky (targeted ~2028) and a ~$635M "Future Artillery Complex" at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant (~2029) [25][26]; tight commercial supply supporting incumbent pricing; and steady long-run critical-minerals and infrastructure volume growth. Decarbonization is both a cost and a product-development trend, as producers install nitrous-oxide abatement and market lower-carbon ammonium nitrate to miners seeking Scope 3 reductions.

Bottom line — a small, moaty, regulation-protected oligopoly whose fortunes track how much rock the world moves, now with an added defense tailwind; the catch for U.S. public-market investors is that the cleanest exposures are listed overseas or held privately.

For full detail on every section above, read the 325920 leaf primer.

---

Sources

1. Dyno Nobel Ltd, Investor Centre — ADR Information (DNLZY), 2025. https://investors.dynonobel.com.au/investor-centre/?page=faqs
2. Citi Depositary Receipts, Orica ADR Directory (OCLDY), 2026. https://depositaryreceipts.citi.com/adr/guides/pgm_dispabook.aspx?cusip=68618H103&pageId=15&subpageID=111
3. LSB Industries, Form 10-K for fiscal year 2025, 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/60714/000119312526076810/lxu-20251231.htm
4. NAICS Association, NAICS Code 325920 — Explosives Manufacturing (definition and cross-references), 2022. https://www.naics.com/naics-code-description/?code=325920
5. U.S. Census Bureau, Economic Census 2022 — Concentration Ratios & Statistics, NAICS 325920 (receipts, firms, CR4/CR8/CR20, HHI), 2022. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
6. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP), 2023 — NAICS 325920 (employment, establishments, payroll), 2023. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
7. U.S. Small Business Administration, Table of Small Business Size Standards (NAICS 325920 = 750 employees), 2023. https://www.sba.gov/document/support-table-size-standards
8. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Fact Sheet — Explosives in the United States, 2025. https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/fact-sheet/explosives-united-states
9. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Facts and Figures — Fiscal Year 2024, 2024. https://www.atf.gov/resource-center/fact-sheet/facts-and-figures-fiscal-year-2024
10. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Explosives 2019 — Minerals Yearbook, 2019. https://pubs.usgs.gov/myb/vol1/2019/myb1-2019-explosives.pdf
11. Institute of Makers of Explosives (IME), Economic Impact of Commercial Explosives, 2025. https://ime.org/aws/IME/pt/sd/news_article/563558/_PARENT/layout_details_share/false
12. IBISWorld / Owler, Austin Powder Company — company profile (revenue, employees, U.S. share estimate), 2026. https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states/company/austin-powder-company/426724/
13. Austin Powder Company, American Industrial Partners Strategic Partnership Announcement, 2024. https://austinpowder.com/partnership/?language=English
14. Dyno Nobel Ltd, FY2025 Full Year Results, 2025. https://dynonobel.gcs-web.com/static-files/e7ec6666-1b28-4bfc-a531-31af1392e8a2
15. Orica Limited, Annual Report 2025, 2025. https://www.orica.com/ArticleDocuments/301/Orica%20Annual%20Report%202025.pdf.aspx
16. Dyno Nobel Ltd, 2025 CDP Climate Change Report (FY24), 2025. https://www.dynonobel.com.au/globalassets/corporate-shared-assets/sustainability/reports/sustainability-reports/2025-sustainability-reports/dyno-nobel-2025-cdp-report_fy24-company-year.pdf
17. Orica Limited, FY2025 Investor Presentation, 2025. https://www.orica.com/ArticleDocuments/303/FY25%20Investor%20Presentation%20Final.pdf.aspx
18. ATF, Federal Explosives Licenses and Permits / Safe Explosives Act, 2024. https://www.atf.gov/explosives/federal-explosives-licenses-and-permits
19. Dyno Nobel Ltd, Change of Company Name and ASX Ticker (Incitec Pivot → Dyno Nobel, IPL → DNL), 2025. https://www.dynonobel.com/news-and-media/news/change-of-company-name-and-asx-ticker/
20. Orica Limited, Completion of Acquisition of Nelson Brothers Explosives Business in the US, 2026. https://www.orica.com/resource-hub/news/2026/completion-of-acquisition-of-nelson-brothers-explosives-business-in-the-us
21. Orica Limited, First Half 2026 Business Update, 2026. https://www.orica.com/resource-hub/news/2026/first-half-business-update
22. Orica Limited, Settlement of Litigation and Supply Restructuring with CF Industries, 2026. https://www.orica.com/resource-hub/news/2026/settlement-of-litigation
23. Institute of Makers of Explosives (IME), Commercial Driver Shortage and Transportation Challenges, 2025. https://www.ime.org/aws/IME/asset_manager/get_file/858583?ver=1
24. CNBC, The explosives shortage may drive up phone, energy and home prices, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/10/the-explosives-shortage-may-drive-up-phone-energy-and-home-prices.html
25. Defense News, US Army hunts for explosives to meet increased munitions output goals, 2024. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/02/06/us-army-hunts-for-explosives-to-meet-increased-munitions-output-goals/
26. ClearanceJobs, U.S. Army Ramps Up 155mm Shell Production With New Ammo Facility, 2025. https://news.clearancejobs.com/2025/04/25/u-s-army-ramps-up-155mm-shell-production-with-new-ammo-facility/