we in europe - esco

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Editorial: esco in a state of change Dear Members of Staff, “Nothing is as constant as change”, is something Heraclitus already discovered in the 5th century BC. This is also a perfect quote for our business and our enterprise. 2011 was an extremely successful year for esco. Thanks to your great achievement and also thanks to the long lasting winter at the beginning of the year, we have generated the second-highest result to date since the record year 2010. However, 2011 ended with very mild weather, so that we started 2012 with full warehouses and only modest deicing salt sales. Therefore, and although we have successfully expanded our speciality business over the past years and are happy about increasing sales figures, the writing is already on the wall that esco will not achieve another record sales year in 2012. Our road salt business is and will stay subject to enormous fluctuations of nature and once again puts high demands on our flexibility this year. Nonetheless, we have good reason to celebrate: For one decade, esco, founded on 1 January 2002 as Joint Venture of, at the time, Kali & Salz and the company Solvay, has been handling the European salt market successfully. We will look back on special milestones in our success story in a special edition of “we in europe”. However, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks and appreciation here and now to all of you who have contributed to this success story and who have an active share in its continuation! In particular our good collaboration across all plant and country borders has helped us to deal with the numerous challenges and advance the esco Group successfully. Another reason for celebrating is the addition we were able to welcome to our group of companies at the beginning of January: Solné Mly´ny, the salt processing operations in Olomouc, in the east of the Czech Republic, and a long-term esco customer in the past, is now a member of the esco Group since the successful closing on 3 January 2012. We cordially welcome the approximately 65 members of staff in Olomouc to our team and will issue “we in europe” also in Czech from now on. Finally, there is also a change at esco’s top in 2012: after more than 35 years of successful activities in the K + S Group, Reinhard Dust is switching over to the passive stage of semi-retirement on 1 April, and will hand over the office of Managing Director responsible for Production and Engineering, as well as Finance and Administration to Matthias Mohr (in the photo on the left), who will return from SPL in Chile for this position. Therefore, 2012 will also be for esco, besides the sometimes very erratic dayto-day business, a year of retrospection we in europe 1|2012 just as much as trendsetting changes – and we can only affirm Heraclitus: Nothing is as constant as change! In this spirit we wish all of us cheerful work(ing) and success for our numerous enterprises and projects so that we may continue to report about the development of the esco Group in future. A cheery “Glückauf!” Reinhard Dust Matthias Mohr Erich Krug
we in europe 1|2012 News from the sites: A bunch of approvals for Frisia Zout At the beginning of January this year, Frisia received several good items of news from the Dutch Ministry of Economics in the form of approvals, which secure the future of the site. On the one hand, the period of the extraction approval for Barradeel II was extended, on the other hand the green light was given for the planned caverns Havenmond* 1 and 2 below the West- Frisian Wadden Sea. “The extraction area Barradeel II lies on land to the north-east of our site,” explains Bart Hendriks, Manager Production at Frisia Zout. “After a coalition decision by the Provincial Government in April 2011 we were no longer supposed to extract salt here from 2015 on, so that the basis for our production threatened to break away.” The period extension provides that Frisia can brine a total extraction amount of maximum 16.8 million tons with a maximum soil lowering of 30 centimetres in Barradeel II until 2021. The Dutch will soon begin with the drilling for the new cavern BAS 3 Original. “The extraction field Havenmond on the other hand lies under the Dutch Wadden Sea,” continues Hendriks. “The issue of this concession is a major prerequisite for us to be able to introduce the next steps for the implementation of our future caverns.” Before the concession could be issued for Havenmond, Frisia Zout had to conduct an environmental compatibility study in a tedious coordination process. The next step is the submission of the extraction plan, as well as numerous applications under environmental legislation. Only after all approvals have been received can the site start with the implementation of the demanding project. The technically challenging drilling is to run from Frisia‘s factory premises over a length of around 6,000 meters diverted under the Wadden Sea and reach the target coordinates of the cavern to be established at a depth of approx. 3,000 meters. Leaching the cavern is planned Havenmond Frisia Zout Harlingen from 2016 on. Drilling the cavern Havenmond 2 is presently to start in 2021. The concession for the extraction area Havenmond is held for a period of 40 years. “We hope that we can start the standard production from the extraction field Havenmond in 2017,” says Reinhard Dust, Managing Director of esco. “That would secure the future of our largest vacuum salt plant.” Jürgen Bunk *Havenmond: Dutch for harbour entrance Barradeel I Location of the extraction areas Barradeel I and II as well as Havenmond Barradeel II Franeker
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