Chilean Rock Salt (Salar Grande Halite)

Ultra-dry Atacama mined halite — de-icing, chlor-alkali & industrial grades

Chilean rock salt from the Salar Grande de Tarapacá is the highest-volume, lowest-moisture natural halite deposit in maritime international trade. Extracted through massive open-pit opencast mining in the hyper-arid Atacama Desert, the material enters the supply chain with a native moisture content consistently below 0.20% — a fifth of typical Mediterranean solar salts. For transatlantic and sub-zero winter discharge into the US Eastern Seaboard, Canada and the Great Lakes, this moisture threshold eliminates the catastrophic cryo-caking and hold-freezing failures that plague marine solar salts. The run-of-mine halite is crushed and screened into precise ASTM D632 Type I Grade 1 curves (0–10 mm / 0–12 mm) for direct highway hopper spreading, or washed and fractionated for electrochemical chlor-alkali brine saturation. Loading takes place across dedicated deepwater mineral quays at Puerto Patillos / Punta Patache at guaranteed continuous conveyor rates of 15,000 to 25,000 MT per day, accommodating Handysize, Supramax and Panamax bulk tonnage with zero draft restrictions.

Under CBIL Doctrine Rule 24, buyers onboarding Chilean rock salt can bypass the balance sheet friction of a 50,000 MT charterparty by initiating a commercial Starter-Trial. We execute 1 to 5 container test parcels (25–125 MT) packed in 1,000 kg heavy-duty poly FIBC totes with polyethylene moisture liners, allowing municipal highway agencies and industrial plants to empirically verify particle size distribution, auger flowability, and chemical recovery through real plant equipment. For deepwater receivers, 5,000 MT partial bulk test lots can be co-discharged on scheduled transatlantic stems. Every lot moves against independent load-port SGS or Intertek inspection certifying NaCl purity, ASTM D632 sieve gradation, insolubles, moisture, and calibrated 50–100 ppm YPS anti-caking dosing for road salt, or 0 ppm certified YPS-free halite for chlor-alkali membranes, on FOB, CFR, CIF and delivered stockpile terms.

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices chemical parcel tanker chartering on LaycanDesk.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.