Sargadelos in the history of spanish iron and steel industry

Abstract

Salgadelos charcoal blast furnaces were an important element in the nineteenth century Spanish iron industry, given they were the main producers of pig iron for almost forty years. Since their foundation in 1794 unti1 the late 1830s the mill was smelting mainly for the spanish army. From the on, the civil market became the sole purchaser of Sargadelos iron products. Throughout its lifetime, only pig and moulded iron was produced, having never being erected the works for its fining into wroght iron. Insufficient finding appears to be responsible for this absence of vertical integration, at least while the firm was run by his owners. Between 1840 and 1860 Sargadelos was rented out by a group of bankers who modernized the mill. In the early sixties the ironworks continued smelting with charcoal a very competitive ingot even compared to the pig iron manufactured by the new cocke blast furnaces. However, bad location, lack of raw materials and financial problems led to its eventual shut down in a short span of time.