Turkish Solar Salt: Tuz Gölü and Çamaltı (Industrial, De-icing & Food Grade)

Tuz Gölü lake salt and Çamaltı sea salt in bulk and jumbo bags for chlor-alkali, de-icing and food packers

Türkiye is a solar-salt origin with two distinct sources. Tuz Gölü, the shallow salt lake between Konya, Aksaray and Ankara, covers about 1,665 km² and supplies around 70% of the country's salt; the lakeside operators harvest roughly 1.5 million MT a year of raw salt from enclosed evaporation ponds, and the largest, Koyuncu, reports about 500,000 MT a year through its washing and refining plant, exports to more than 50 countries on five continents including Europe and Africa, and quotes 99.5% NaCl for its washed industrial grade, sold mainly to the chlor-alkali and detergent industries, municipalities and highway authorities. On the Aegean coast the Çamaltı saltworks in the Gediz delta at İzmir, in operation since 1863, is the country's largest sea saltworks with a stated capacity of 600,000 MT a year over 73 km² of ponds, run together with the Ayvalık works under a 2010 privatisation contract; the refiner it feeds, Billur Tuz at İzmir, runs a 250,000 MT a year plant and reports exports to about 80 countries. Turkish total output was about 8.3 million MT in 2025 in one published country ranking. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations under HS 2501 (all salt, including brine and rock salt) total about USD 3.3 billion across 124 reporters; those are declared values, not offers. Grades follow the destination standard: de-icing salt to EN 16811-1 (a minimum of 90% NaCl, four particle-size classes on 0.125–10 mm sieves, limits on sulphate, heavy metals, moisture and ferrocyanide anti-caking agent); food-grade salt to Codex CXS 150 (not less than 97% NaCl on a dry basis, exclusive of additives, iodised where the destination's health authority requires it); chlor-alkali and water-softening salt on NaCl, calcium, magnesium, sulphate and insolubles.

The buyer is a chlor-alkali or soda-ash plant, a water-softener salt packer, a textile dyehouse, a tannery, a fish-processing sector, a food packer iodising and bagging for retail, a road authority or de-icing distributor buying ahead of winter, or an oilfield drilling-fluids company. Bulk buyers take Handysize and Supramax cargoes from Aegean and Mediterranean ports; bagged buyers take 25 kg and 1 MT jumbo bags in containers. Documents are the producer's certificate of analysis (COA) for NaCl, moisture, insolubles, calcium, magnesium and sulphate, a certificate of origin, and for food grade a health certificate and iodisation certificate as the destination requires. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers Turkish lake and sea salt from the Tuz Gölü operators and the Aegean saltworks and refiners, raw, washed, de-icing and food grade, in bulk and in bags, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms; because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk) that works dry-bulk tonnage, freight can be quoted alongside a bulk cargo so a CFR West Africa or Black Sea number is comparable to FOB the same day. Price is per MT and depends on grade, moisture, particle size and pack; minimum quantities are confirmed per product and pack. Send the grade, the NaCl and sieve you buy against, bulk or bagged, tonnage, season and discharge port, and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.

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.