Southwest German salt works
| Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG
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| legal form | Corporation |
| ISIN | DE0007346603 |
| founding | 1883 |
| Seat | Heilbronn |
| management | Ulrich Fluck and Wolfgang Rüther |
| Number of employees | 1043 |
| sales | € 239 million |
| Branch | Salt extraction, logistics, tourism and disposal |
| Website | www.salzwerke.de |
| Status: 2016 | |
The Southwest German salt works AG (SWS AG), headquartered in Heilbronn is a manufacturer of rock salt and vacuum salt , in 1971 through the merger of salt Heilbronn AG and the Southwest German Salz AG arose. The two largest shareholders of SWS AG are the city of Heilbronn (49.0%) and the state of Baden-Württemberg (49.0%; as of December 2014). The entire group (with subsidiaries ) achieved an annual turnover of around 240 million euros in 2016 with 1043 employees.
history
Early development up to World War II
The salt Heilbronn AG was founded in 1883 by a consortium of Württemberg and Frankfurt banks and the city of Heilbronn and operational initially founded in 1820 Saline Friedrichshall in Jagstfeld . In 1885 rock salt mining began in Heilbronn. After the shaft of the salt works in Jagstfeld had to be abandoned because of water ingress, the new shaft "King Wilhelm II" was built in 1899 in neighboring Kochendorf under the direction of August Bohnert . The production of explosives took place in this shaft from 1913 to 1915 under the license of the Berlin Miedziankit GmbH. The Heilbronn glassworks was founded as a subsidiary on October 11, 1922 , and was able to use waste materials from salt production to make glass. It started production on August 14, 1923 and primarily manufactured wine bottles on the salt works site .
In 1934, the sculptor Helmuth Uhrig created a monumental relief sculpture in the dome hall of the shaft , which is 180 meters underground. The completion of the canalization of the Neckar to Heilbronn in 1935 significantly improved the transport options for the mines and salt works around Heilbronn. During the Second World War, the Kochendorf concentration camp in the shafts of the salt works was used for armaments production from September 1944, and art and valuables were also stored there.
Growth and Consolidation after 1945
The subsidiary Glashütte Heilbronn was sold in 1967 to Gerresheimer AG , which ran it as a Heilbronn branch for a few years, but closed on March 24, 1978. In 1971, Salzwerk Heilbronn AG merged with Südwestdeutsche Salz AG to form Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG , based in Heilbronn. The companies' facilities have been expanded and modernized on various occasions. In 1984 the Heilbronn and Kochendorf mines were connected underground. In 1987, the storage of landfill material began in the Heilbronn mine, which, with the foreseeable backfilling operation in the Kochendorf mine, led to the establishment of the subsidiary Environment, Disposal and Recycling GmbH (UEV) in 1992. In 1999, the joint subsidiary Agrosal GmbH for the production of salt licks was founded with the Swiss Rhine Saltworks .
Kochendorf pit as a backfill mine
After an expert opinion on stability prepared on the occasion of several cracks in the Kochendorf mine in 1992 had shown that this can be guaranteed during operation, but that if the cavities are left open in the post-operational phase, cracks could continue to the surface of the surface , the State Mining Office ordered the in November 1992 complete offset of the Kochendorf pit. For economic reasons, the only possible backfill material for the remaining 12.1 million cubic meters of cavities, in addition to mountain salt from ongoing operations, was the recycling of bulk material waste: slag, construction waste, contaminated soil, foundry sands, filter dust, etc. In 1993 the framework operating plan was approved, in 1994 the salt production was discontinued and at the end of the same year, on the basis of investigations with the different backfill materials that had been ongoing since 1992, backfill operation could begin to a limited extent, initially with filter dust in big bags . In 1996, the downward conveyance of bulk goods, for which the systems in the König Wilhelm II shaft had to be fundamentally rebuilt, was put into operation, and in 1998 an upstream processing system with which further materials can be brought into a form suitable for backfilling.
Considerable resistance in the political arena, including the EU Commission, against the classification of this displacement of waste, which is also practiced elsewhere, as recycling, threatened the concept for a long time. If it had been classified as waste disposal, it would not have been possible to continue because of the waste producers' obligation to recycle as a priority. The costs of other conceivable material for the relocation of the mine ordered by mining law would have led to bankruptcy. The question was only clarified with the decision of the European Court of Justice in February 2002 that underground transport is recovery “if its main purpose is aimed at ensuring that the waste can fulfill a meaningful task by replacing other materials that are necessary for it Task should have been used. "
21st century
In 2003/04, in the course of the expansion of the Heilbronn mine to the northwest on the Biberach district, the 240-meter-deep Konradsberg shaft was sunk, which is used for ventilation , power supply and the transport of large equipment by mobile crane without any internals or winding tower . Extraction, ropeway travel and landfill transport continue through the Heilbronn and Franken pits, which are now eight kilometers from the extraction site. The drilling and blasting extraction, which was only practiced until then, will increasingly be replaced in the Heilbronn mine by cutting extraction using a continuous miner from 2006 onwards. In 2010/11, a further link was driven from the Heilbronn mine directly to the König Wilhelm II shaft of the Kochendorf mine , in order to be able to continue using the facilities at the Heilbronn mine after the completion of the displacement in Kochendorf, which is foreseeable in 2012. On May 1, 2012, the Kochendorf visitor mine, which had been closed since October 2008, was modernized and reopened after it was threatened with final closure due to a lack of profitability and the company received financial support from the city of Bad Friedrichshall, the district of Heilbronn and the state of Baden-Württemberg the visitor mine had requested.
business
Rock salt is extracted in the Heilbronn and Berchtesgaden mines , brine in the Bad Reichenhall area . Further processing and refinement into evaporated salt takes place in the salt pans in Bad Friedrichshall and Bad Reichenhall . The production capacity of the two shafts near Heilbronn is around 4 million tons per year. SWS AG products are sold under the Bad Reichenhaller and Aquasale brands, among others .
The Southwest German salt works AG founded the subsidiary in 2000 SWS Alpensalz GmbH . Since 2001, Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG has also had a majority stake in Südsalz GmbH , which offers a wide range of salt products, via SWS-Alpensalz . In addition, since 2002 SWS AG has had a 51 percent stake in Reederei Schwaben GmbH , 45% stake in the Swiss Rheinsalz AG and other company holdings. With the acquisition of Global Salz GmbH and Global Center GmbH in October 2006 and the simultaneous sale of land haulage companies, SWS AG will concentrate its logistics more on ship transport in the future. Another subsidiary is UEV - Umwelt, Verwaltung und Verwertung GmbH , which was founded in 1992 and which fills the voids that are no longer required in the Heilbronn and Kochendorf mines with waste . In December 2007, SWS-Winterdienst GmbH was founded within the parent company.
The Federal Cartel Office imposed on 12 November 2008 against the Südsalz GmbH , a fine of 15.6 million euros for colluding in the field of de-icing salt in southern Germany. According to the SWS Group, however, no effects on jobs are expected.
For some years now, the group has been pursuing the goal of reducing the number of subsidiaries and holdings in order to reduce complexity. Most recently, with effect from August 1, 2016, the companies SWS-Winterdienst GmbH, Südsalz GmbH and SWS-Alpensalz GmbH were merged with Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke AG.
literature
- Klaus Riexinger and Detlef Ernst: Destruction through work - armaments in the mine. The history of the Kochendorf concentration camp - external command of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp . Silberburg-Verlag , Tübingen 2003, ISBN 978-3-87407-556-5 .
- Christhard Schrenk: Secret cultural property collection points. The Heilbronn and Kochendorf salt mines 1942 to 1947 . In: Reorganizations. Southwest German museums in the post-war period . Edited by the Baden-Württemberg State Office for Museum Care. Silberburg-Verlag , Tübingen 2002, ISBN 978-3-87407-503-9 , pp. 43-58.
Web links
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
- Rumbling from the depths - blow up salt works. In: Stimme.de. June 12, 2020, accessed June 12, 2020 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Annual Report 2016. (Pdf, 4.16 MB) Südwestdeutsche Salzwerke, March 30, 2017, p. 1 , accessed on November 21, 2017 .
- ^ Trimborn: Explosivstofffabriken in Deutschland , Cologne 1995, p. 114
- ↑ a b Entry on Glashütte Heilbronn AG in the HEUSS database of the Heilbronn City Archives , contemporary history collection, signature ZS-925
- ↑ European Court of Justice (Fifth Chamber): Judgment of February 27, 2002 in Case C-6/00
- ↑ State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg: Printed matter 14/6120: Application by Abg. Dr. Nils Schmid and others SPD and statement from the Ministry of Finance: Preservation of the Kochendorf concentration camp memorial. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 105 kB) March 30, 2010 - the application was already mutually declared as settled in the finance committee on May 12, 2010 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 257 kB), because the parties involved had come to an agreement.
