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Sulfur mining in Sicily

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History

The harvesting of outcrop sulfur took place even in very ancient times. In fact, mining vestiges have been found dating back to 200 B.C.E.; it was used in medicine from time immemorial but the Romans also used it for war purposes by mixing it with other fuels.

What set in motion the large-scale exploitation of Sicilian sulfur was the discovery of the Le Blanc method (1787) for the industrial-scale manufacture of soda ash. Sulfur, also a key ingredient in the production of gunpowder, then assumed a strategic importance equal to that held in the modern era by uranium. During the Napoleonic Wars several British capitalists began to take an interest in the open-pit mining areas that were located near the ports of southern Sicily. After the peace and Conservative Order of 1815 various French companies also began their activities in the area due to the development of production and demand for sulfuric acid, which had a further propelling effect on Sicilian ore mining.

Following the Conservative Order, the sulfur industry finally took off, so much so that in the second half of the 1830s exports abroad of sulfur were already found to rank first among those from the island with an annual value of 1,671,500 ducats.

In the years between 1828 and 1830, the export of sulfur to the Marseille factories for the production of soda ash and sulfuric acid reached and exceeded 35,000 tons. Various contingent reasons, including overproduction, meant that from 1830 onward the sulfur industry had ups and downs with rather sustained price fluctuations also due to competition from pyrites mined and processed locally in Central Italy, whose transportation cost was lower. Attempts to establish sulfuric acid and soda ash production industries in Sicily were for various reasons not very successful; in 1838 Ferdinand II had granted the Sicilian sulfur monopoly to the French company Taix & Aycard, which in return promised the development of processing industries and the construction of 25 km of carriage roads a year. However, this choice did not lead to the hoped-for results, as market prices rose excessively, the industrial initiatives were not followed up, and there was stiff opposition from Great Britain, which even threatened to seize Sicilian ships, so in 1846 the agreements to that effect were revoked. The largest importer in 1849 was England, but sulfur was also sold in large quantities to the United States.

The development of methods for using pyrites (of much lower cost) instead of sulfur in the production of sulfuric acid along with the spread of the Solvay method of producing artificial soda ash were decisive in the gradual loss of market share, particularly in Germany and England, resulting in the collapse of Sicilian sulfur prices. Production continued until the end of the nineteenth century but the collapse of selling prices put the entire industry in crisis.

In 1896 the Anglo-Sicilian Sulphur Company Limited was formed in London, a company whose members included Vincenzo Florio, who was its attorney for Sicily, and a group of interested investors including Englishmen Benjamin Ingham and Agostino Porry; the purpose was to revive the marketing of sulfuric acid and sulfur derivatives. Agreements made with the Anglo-Sicilian-Sulphur Co. allowed producers access to credit to finance more modern industrial plants by improving mine facilities. For a time the Sicilian sulphur sector was lifted from the crisis into which it had plunged; prices, which in 1895 had fallen to 56 liras per ton already a few years later, stabilized at 90–95 liras.

Also reviving the demand for sulfur was the serious spread of a plant disease, powdery mildew; a parasitic fungus of the vine affected vineyards throughout Europe, devastating them. The only remedy to prevent its spread was spraying plants with sulfur powder in an aqueous solution. Sulfur refining and milling then became profitable again with the establishment of refineries and milling plants in various coastal locations from Licata to Porto Empedocle and in the city of Catania.

One of the problems underlying the various crises in the industry was the infrastructural deficiency in transportation, lack of communication roads, lack of ports that would allow large cargo ships to dock, lack of mechanical means and railways, which the various governments had neglected and which the new Kingdom of Italy addressed with little determination. In the early 1870s, the mayor of Catania Tenerelli, a financier and entrepreneur in the sulfur industry, denounced the delay in proceeding with the construction of the Palermo-Catania railway as the main reason for the paralysis of the sulfur industry. In fact, it was only after the opening of the section up to Villarosa (1876), subcontracted by Robert Trewhella (also a large sulfur entrepreneur in the Catania area) that sulfur could reach the city's refineries and the Port of Catania quickly. This fact led the city to assume a preeminent role in the industry, because it lowered to almost half the unit price of transportation, which until that time had been accomplished by means of carramatti, a kind of cargo wagons pulled by sturdy draft horses.

By the end of the 19th century there were more than 700 mines present and active, employing a workforce of more than 30,000, the working conditions of which, however, remained bordering on inhumane. The turn-of-the-century years thus saw the birth and development of the first trade unions and the beginning of strikes to obtain more humane working conditions. The sulphur workers were those who most participated in the establishment of the Workers' Fasci: in May 1891 the Fascio of Catania was established; in October 1893 the mining congress was held in Grotte, a mining town in the province of Agrigento. The congress was attended by 1,500 workers and small producers. The sulphur workers demanded raising by law to 14 the minimum age of mine boys exploited since then as slaves, a decrease in working hours (which was practically from dawn to dusk) and a minimum wage. Small producers demanded measures that would free them from the exploitation of the few large owners who controlled the storage market while deriving all the profit. The Fasci, however, were disbanded on authority by the Francesco Crispi government in early 1894 after more than a hundred demonstrators had died in clashes with the army in a single year. The industry had entered a crisis in the 1890s and the Anglo-Sicilian company had shifted trade to the Port of Licata and Porto Empedocle where costs were lower, causing serious repercussions on the Catanese economy.

In 1901 the work units reached a high of thirty-nine thousand with 540,000 tons of sulfur ore extracted.

The Anglo-Sicilian company continued to operate but ceased operations as a result of the spread of the new mining method, the Frasch process, that had spread to the United States, which, by drastically lowering the cost of extraction, made the mines of Sicily, to which the method was not applicable due to the different conformation and composition of the deposits, no longer competitive.

World War I increased the difficulties of supplying materials for the industry and decreased the number of miners as a result of most of the workforce being called to the front. By the end of the war the U.S. sulfur industry grabbed much of the world market. In 1927 Fascism nationalized the mining subsoil by creating the Ente Nazionale Zolfi Italiani based in Rome centralizing all mining, commercial and economic activities there, nevertheless failing to revive the industry. Sicilian sulfur production regained some breath only after 1943, after the war was over (in Sicily), but only until the early 1950s as America engaged in the Korean War and channelled resources to the war industry.

The subsequent resumption of American industrial production again raked all markets burning the competition with low prices, despite Italian protectionism at both the central and regional government levels (which in 1962 had created the Ente Minerario Siciliano for the purpose). The measures taken only needlessly prolonged the slow agony of the island's sulfur sector until the market liberalization sought by the European single market decreed its end. In 1976 the island's sulfur production had not exceeded a total of 85,000 tons. Beginning in 1975 various laws produced the gradual closure of the Musala, Zimbalio, Gaspa La Torre, Baccarato, Giangagliano, Floristella, Grottacalda, and Giumentaro mines to name the largest; today none remain in operation.

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