Every day, each of the earth's 5.9 billion inhabitants uses salt. Annual salt
production has increased over the past century from 10 million tons to over 200 million
tons today. Nearly 100 nations have salt producing facilities ranging from primitive solar
evaporation to advanced, multi-stage evaporation in salt refineries.
Humans need salt to live. Prehistoric man obtained salt from the meat of hunted
animals. When man developed agriculture, salt was added to supplement the vegetable and
cereal diet and the quest for salt became a primary motivation in history.
In the mid-1800s, salt's value as an important raw material for the chemical industry was
established when the Solvay process in Belgium converted salt to synthetic soda ash. Salt
is, today, the largest mineral feedstock consumed by the
world chemical industry.
North America produces more than one-quarter of the
world's salt.
The U.S. salt industry began in 1614 when the
first non-native solar saltworks was established by the Jamestown colonists on Smith's
Island, VA. The U.S. is the world's second largest salt producer, producing 46 million tons a
year, nearly half of that in the form of brines produced by captive brine wells supplying
U.S. chloralkali chemical companies in such states as Michigan, Texas and West Virginia. The remaining
is "dry salt" produced using three basic
technologies: solar evaporation of seawater or saline lakewater,
solution mining and vacuum pan evaporation and
conventional deep-shaft (rock salt) mining. Currently, the U.S. salt
industry operates 48 salt production plants with major production
sites in Louisiana, Ohio, New York, Kansas, Michigan,
Utah, Texas and
California. All major U.S. salt producers are members
of the Salt Institute. U.S. salt production is also tracked by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Michigan State University has a nice review of saltmaking in Michigan.
The Canadian
salt industry produces 15 million metric tonnes from major rock salt mines in
Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick and vacuum pan refineries in Alberta, Saskatchewan,
Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; nearly three-fourths was rock salt which is used
primarily for highway deicing.
Mexican salt production totalled 8.2 million tonnes, most of it from the
world's largest solar facility in Guerrero Negro in Baja California. This map shows major Mexican salt production
facilities.
 World salt production
|
240 million tonnes
in 2006 |
| U.S. |
46 million tonnes |
 China |
48 million tonnes |
 Germany |
18.6 million tonnes |
 India |
16 million tonnes |
| Canada |
15 million tonnes |
 Australia
|
12.4 million tonnes |
| Mexico |
8.5 million tonnes |
 France |
7 million tonnes |
 Brazil |
7.3 million tonnes |
 United Kingdom |
5.8 million tonnes |
As
of 2006, China has become the world's largest producer of salt. Chinese
salt production has risen sharply, having increased by more than 50% in the
last decade alone - a trend that shows no sign of slowing down.
Europe is a major salt producer ( 1 2-cached copy).
European salt manufacturers are members of the European
Salt Producers Association (EuSalt) and many countries also have national salt
associations (e.g. France, Germany, and the U.K). Salt production site maps operated by Salt
Institute member companies are on some company websites, such as
Cargill Salt,
Morton Salt, Salins and the
European
Salt Company.
Salt production is a well-promoted tourist attraction.
Some areas of the world have a natural disadvantage
having no underground salt deposits and a climate unsuitable to solar salt production. The
Salt Industry Association of Japan (translate this Japanese site using
AltaVista's Babelfish), Japan's
Salt Science
Research Foundation and the
Salt Industry Center of
Japan have extensive information about salt and the salt industry in Japan. Consultants produce (expensive) detailed industry analyses ( 1 2 3 ).
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