SEPI Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales

During the last weekend, more than 200 persons, between cyclists and hikers, took part in the 'I Ruta del Azogue' (First Route of Mercury). The project was thought up by the alumni association of the School of Mining and Industrial Engineering of Almadén and has been supported by MAYASA.

The route, which spans more than 300 kilometers from Almadén to Seville, aims to recover the Royal Highway, which played a significant role in the world economy from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The project, which has been thought up by the alumni of the School of Mining and Industrial Engineering of Almadén, set out on May 6th from the Cerco de San Teodoro de Minas de Almadén, and ended on the 8th in Seville, travelling along the same path through which the thousands of Tons of mercury required for the extraction of the American silver mercury were transported, loaded on mules and on wagons.

Mercury’s long travel started with a first leg on land from Almadén to the Reales Atarazanas de la Casa de Contratación in Seville. Once in this city it was loaded onto shallow draft ships, which took it down the Guadalquivir River to its mouth, where the galleons which would transport it across the Atlantic waited.

At the Museum of Mercury in Almadén’s Mining Park there are available more data and artifacts about this fascinating history. 

MAYASA and Grupo SEPI

MAYASA belongs to Grupo SEPI, a corporate holding which includes a total of 16 state-owned companies in which it has direct, majority shareholding participations, with a workforce of around 73,000 professionals in 2014; the Spanish state-owned television and radio corporation, Corporación Radiotelevisión Española, which is attached to SEPI, and one public foundation. Equally, SEPI has direct minority shareholdings in a further ten companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies.