Number one in salt esco

NUMBER ONE IN SALT

With salt production plants in five European countries, Germany’s esco supplies salt products for all imaginable uses.

Esco is the biggest salt producer in Europe, operating three rock salt mines, two solution mines and several vacuum salt plants in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. With an annual production of around six million tonnes of salt, the Hanover-based company offers its international customers a full range of highquality salt products, from a variety of food grade salts to salt for chemical and industrial applications, for pharmaceutical products and for the de-icing of winter roads. esco employs a total of some 1300 people at its 19 production, distribution and sales operations across Europe and has annual revenues of around €400m. esco is part of the business unit Salt of the K+S Group and takes care of the European salt business of the group. The K+S Group is one of the world’s leading suppliers of standard and speciality fertilisers. Employing more than 15,000 people K+S also offers a comprehensive range of goods and services for agriculture, industry and private consumers. Its salt business comprises, as well as esco, the Chilean Sociedad Punta de lobos and the USA based Morton Salt. Its annual production capacity of around 15 million tonnes of salt makes K+S the largest salt producer in the world.

Salt is, of course, familiar to all of us as a foodstuff and as an essential product for keeping winter roads open but many of its uses go undetected even though they are all around us. Salt is present in textiles, in glass and plastics as well as in detergents and cleaning agents, ceramics, leather goods and cellulose products. It is also found in cosmetics and pharma products. esco offers a comprehensive range of salt products for all of these uses, and many more. Its product range includes rock salt, evaporated salt, sea salt and brine. The quality, granulation, processing and packaging of all these varieties of salt are specifically tailored to customer requirements.

One hundred years at Braunschweig

In August 2011 esco’s BraunschweigLuneburg salt mine celebrated its 100th anniversary. The first shaft at the mine was sunk in 1911 and extraction of potash and rock salt began in 1913. Potash production ceased in 1922 but the mine continues to be the biggest source of rock salt products within the esco group. In fact the mine is the only one of the many ancient mines in Lower Saxony to survive to this day, thanks to the exceptional purity of the Grasleben rock salt deposits.

The mine fields of the Grasleben plant cover an area of 108 km2, reaching from Wolfsburg in the north-west to Schwanefeld in the south-east. The crystal salt produced

in the mine has an average purity of 99 per cent sodium chloride. The Grasleben plant can supply up to 1000 tonnes of packaged goods and up to 6000 tonnes of bulk product per day. Its range includes everything from small packages and 25 and 50kg bags to one ton bigbags and industrial and deicing salt in bulk. In winter the plant can load up to 300 trucks per day with de-icing salt.

The end of 2011 also saw the setting up of an additional production facility for lick blocks at the Braunschweig-Luneburg plant. Lick blocks play an important role in modern livestock farming as simple and cost-saving feed supplements for cattle, horses, sheep, goats and pigs. They deliver the vital sodium chloride as well as other elements such as magnesium and calcium and the trace elements zinc, cobalt, iron, iodine, selenium and copper.

“On the basis of the strong increase in the overall demand for lick blocks for animal nutrition, we decided in favour of this investment in 2010,” said Elke Riedel, esco’s Product Manager for animal nutrition. “The addition of another high-performance lick block press to our production lines at Grasleben will enable us to react to customer demands even faster and with increased flexibility.”

Looking eastwards

At the beginning of 2012 esco significantly expanded its position in eastern Europe through the acquisition of the Czech salt processing company Solne Mlyny a.s.. The Czech company is a major supplier of salt products in the Czech Republic as well as in other European markets. It has a table salt brand which is well-known in its home market and also supplies a wide range of food grade, industrial and de-icing salts. Solne Mlyny sells around 100,000 tonnes of its salt products per year and, until its acquisition, has been one of esco’s customers in the Czech market.

The latest news from esco is the appointment of a new senior manager. On 1 April 2012, Matthias Mohr became the managing director for Production, finance and administration. An economics graduate, Mr Mohr joined the K+S Group in 1995; he was appointed head of corporate development in 2003 and has most recently been CEO of K+S’s Chilean subsidiary, Punta de Lobos.

Erich Krug remains the managing director for marketing, sales and logistics at esco. Underlining the importance of esco’s Czech acquisition, he said, “With the purchase of Solne Mlyny we have taken an important step in our eastern Europe strategy. The company is well-established on the market, works costeffectively and has a direct rail connection as well as major storage capacities. All this will be a crucial contribution to strengthening our position in the eastern markets.” n