Production Record in Rock Salt Mine of Braunschweig Lüneburg

30 Million Tons in 92 Years

On 8 December, 2006, the esco rock salt mine of Braunschweig-Lüneburg in Grasleben, Northern Germany, extracted the 30 millionth ton of salt. If filled into a cargo train, this volume would make such  train stretch from Madrid to Istanbul. At the same time, the mine achieved the so far highest annual output of nearly 800,000 tons.

The salt mine of Braunschweig-Lüneburg is one of three German salt mines of esco - european salt company. Founded in 1911, the production of potassium salt and rock salt was started in 1914. After discovering a vast deposit of particularly pure rock salt, it was decided in 1922 to concentrate exclusively on the production of same. Already in the late 1920s, the plant represented one of the most important salt mines in Germany. The mine field extends over a surface of more than 100 square kilometers; the average thickness of the depost is 200 meters.

After a temporary resumption of potash production after the War, exclusively rock salt has been extracted in Grasleben since 1954. Production capacity has been increased ever since so that the annual output amounted to more than 200,000 tons in 1955, more than 300,000 tons in 1964, and eventually 400,000 tons in 1968. The high grade of mechanization and enhancement of productivity has led to today's miners putting out the ten-fold volume as compared to 1955. De-icing salt (over 60%) is the most important product of the plant, followed by industrial salt products and food-grade as well as fishery salt.

One of the world's leading suppliers of salt

The K+S Group offers its customers a complete range of high-quality salt products for industrial applications, commerce and household use, and has particularly advantageous and cost-effective production and logistics structures.

With its two subsidiaries esco – european salt company and the Chilean Sociedad Punta de Lobos, acquired in June 2006, K+S is among the world’s top producers of salt. esco and SPL sell a total of more than 10 million tons of salt products annually and furthermore possess considerable reserve capacity, which is used chiefly to ensure especially reliable deliveries of winter road clearance products to customers.