secretindustrialworld

Discovering Cartagena

More Articles By Phillip Bruce www.raxomnium.com

Cartagena’s Secret Industrial Wonder World

One of the most interesting places to visit in Cartagena never features on normal tourist itineraries. This is the valley of Escombreras which is home to one of Europe’s biggest energy and chemical ports.

When driving through Escombreras the visitor can feel that he has stumbled onto the set of some futuristic movie featuring incredible collections of pipes, tubes, weird installations, circular and spherical tanks, snaking cables, gantries and chimneys.

The industrial port is just around the headland from the picturesque main harbour of Cartagena, to the east. For years everything was invisible but recently a huge tank, costing tens of millions of euros, has appeared on the skyline visible from the waterfront where tourists enjoy a stroll. This will hold 150,000 cubic metres of natural gas. There are several other huge natural gas storage facilities in Escombreras. The gas comes mainly from North Africa and arrivals represent a very high percentage of Spain’s energy imports.

In the valley itself there are plants that process oil and gas into a bewildering variety of products that are then used in other industrial activities. Significant amounts of electricity are generated by plants there and the pylons and cables that carry the power out of the valley march over the hills.

The power company Iberdrola is currently commissioning a big combined-cycle electricity generation facility and it has announced that it is going to build a second at a cost of 400 million euros scheduled to open 2011. A big refinery is being built and this is expected to lead to the creating of some 6,500 jobs. This will be the biggest producer in Spain of diesel.

Escombreras has been used by traders for thousands of years and the name comes from the mackerel that were greatly valued in the area. Salted fish and a fish-paste much used in Roman cooking was produced there and widely exported. A small island that used to stand alone at the entrance to the bay, with a Roman lighthouse, has now been swallowed up by large scale reclamation upon which yet more industrial facilities will be built.

The first large-scale underwater archaeological campaign in Spain was carried out in the waters around the island as far back as 1947. In more recent years a huge programme of underwater archaeology saw every square metre of the seabed of Escombreras and Cartagena harbours mapped and investigated with masses of finds that will take years to catalogue and assess.

If you have a car, it’s well worth having a drive through Escombreras. The road to look for is the N343, which crosses both the A30 and the AP7. When you get to the bottom of the valley look for a roundabout and turn right, looking for a sign saying “Cartagena 11 kilometres.” At the second roundabout, take the exit going up the hill with the sign “attencion tunnels.” Nor surprisingly, you then pass through a tunnel.

Now you are at another of Cartagena’s secret places, the lovely little cove of Cortina Beach. There is parking by the side of the road and you can walk down the steps to the water. A café operates during the summer. There are lots of old forts on the hillsides. Drive on through more tunnels and you will arrive at Cartagena. Of course, you can do the drive the other way round – basically follow the road that runs off at the left hand side of the harbour as you look out to sea.

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