Those enormous white mountains beside Torrevieja’s pink lagoon are about to get considerably bigger.
The town’s saltworks expects to harvest around 500,000 tonnes of salt during its current production season, with roughly half destined for customers in Spain and the other half heading overseas.
Harvesting began in September, and the operator already has around 350,000 tonnes stored at the site.
Where does all that salt go?
Around 250,000 tonnes from the new harvest should remain in Spain.
The domestic market has been growing as the company attracts new customers, with Torrevieja salt supplying industries ranging from food and chemicals to winter road maintenance.
The company is also looking at new industrial markets requiring particularly pure salt with low levels of magnesium. These could lead to longer-term supply agreements rather than orders for a single season.
Another 250,000 tonnes could head abroad, although that figure is much harder to predict.
European demand for road salt depends heavily on the weather. A cold winter with plenty of snow and ice can mean more orders, while a mild winter reduces demand.
Exports also supply the fishing industry.
Cargo ships using Torrevieja’s salt dock generally carry between 6,000 and 13,000 tonnes at a time. The company can send smaller consignments in containers through Alicante.
How do they harvest salt from the pink lagoon?
Torrevieja does things rather differently from the traditional image of small coastal salt pans.
The famous pink lagoon remains full of water while salt crystallises on its bed. Machinery then harvests the resulting layer from beneath the water.
The neighbouring La Mata lagoon helps concentrate seawater before it reaches Torrevieja. The system also receives concentrated brine from the underground salt deposit at Pinoso. Spain’s Geological and Mining Institute confirms that this brine reaches Torrevieja through a pipeline system introduced to supplement production.
After machinery lifts the salt from the lagoon bed, workers wash it before conveyors carry it to the huge storage piles visible around the saltworks.
The company concentrates extraction in the eastern half of the Torrevieja lagoon. It could bring another area into production if demand increased substantially, but current sales do not require the extra capacity.
Salt is also attracting visitors
The saltworks may be an industrial operation, but it has increasingly become a visitor attraction in its own right.
Around 50,000 people now visit, principally aboard the tourist train, alongside walking and cycling tours and other activities. Tourism currently represents around 5% of the company’s business.
Guided walking visits also take visitors into the industrial area, past the salt mountains and alongside the pink lagoon, giving people a closer look at a landscape many Costa Blanca residents normally only see from a distance.
A business shaped by the weather
Despite its spectacular setting, salt production remains a commercial business, and recent accounts show some of the pressures involved.
The company’s latest available accounts, covering 2024, recorded turnover of €10.04 million, compared with €9.78 million the previous year. Losses fell from €1.57 million to €420,207, while the company employed 76 people.
This year’s harvest should add another half-million tonnes to Torrevieja’s salt mountains.
How quickly those mountains shrink again will depend partly on something happening hundreds of kilometres away: just how cold Europe’s winter turns out to be.
Bridging the Gap’s recap
- Torrevieja’s saltworks expects to harvest around 500,000 tonnes this season.
- Harvesting began in September.
- Around 350,000 tonnes of salt are already in storage.
- The company expects roughly half of the new harvest to remain in Spain and half to go abroad.
- European winter weather can have a major effect on demand for road salt.
- Torrevieja salt also supplies the food, chemical and fishing industries.
- Around 50,000 people now visit the saltworks.
- The company is looking for new industrial customers requiring particularly pure salt.
