HISTORY

The salt extraction on the region started little after the discovery of the fossil deposits and potassium nitrate naturally formed for the immense areas flooded in the low parts of the swamps from “Laguna Ojo de Liebre”. Those deposits of salt or floors were formed by the natural evaporation of sea water that flooded the impermeable and flat lands during high tides.

Trough many years salt has been extracted from this deposits in a rudimentary way, transporting it in mining gondolas to the wooden dock to the south east of the Laguna, where they are loaded in small vessels. There is still remaining of that infrastructure.

At the start of the fifties, due to Salina de San Francisco stopping to supply salt to the paper industry from the east coast of the US, a group of north American directives searched for the most appropriate zone to start the construction of facilities for salt production and this way supply this opening in the market. Mr. Daniel K. Ludwig, president of National Bulk Carriers, was interested in a project that would exploit the lands of Guerrero Negro and started the corresponding process making the request to the “commision de fomento minero” of the Mexican government. In this way, on April 7th 1954 was constituted Exportadora de Sal, S.A.

May 27th 1957 the first sat shipment was made with 8,708 tons on board of the “Nikolos” that sailed from Venustiano Carranza Port.

Due to a raise on demand and the operational start of Exportadora de Sal on the fifties, they started to re condition the area of concentration to produce brine in a controlled environment. Those concentration areas were built with the help of dykes to separate the flood lands from the lake. This way, in those existent fossil lands started to crystalize new salt and later expanded the crystallization lands in new tanks with conditioned floors for the process of crystallization of the residual brine.

From the decade of the fifties have been integrated little by little new areas for the production of salt, using the method of water evaporation by solar energy of sea water. was this way that Exportadora de Sal came to have an approximated extension of 89 Km2 and a yearly production of 79,790 tons of salt and an operative infrastructure able to produce, transport and ship 7 million tons of volume per year. Actually Exportadora de Sal conts with 28,184 hectares ( 281 Km2) of evaporation ponds or concentration areas, 3,000 hectares (30 Km2) of crystallization ponds in the low lands adjacent to the ponds “Ojo de Liebre” and “Guerrero Negro”.

In 1960 ESSA started to participate in the Japanese market.

In 1965 the investment started in a guided way to give ESSA major flexibility and capacity, for production and commercialization. The new port facilities and the salt washing plant, built inside “Ojode Liebre” at the port of “Chaparrito” with the residential and industrial infrastructure at the island of Cedros in the state of Baja California.