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In Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia we visit the interesting Riutort Oil Mine, in Berguedà, where I took this series of photographs from the moment of the tour.
We are accompanied by an expert guide, who explains in an entertaining and didactic way everything that we find inside the galleries.
It is necessary to equip yourself with a helmet and warm clothing, due to possible landslides, the intense humidity and low temperatures. Even today the rocks ooze bituminous liquids through cracks and pores.
This oil mine is unique in Spain and one of the few that exist in the world. The galleries were dug with a pick and shovel at the beginning of the 20th century, in the mountains of the Cadí Moixeró National Park.
The marls are soaked in natural crude oil, coming from a geological and biological process from marine elements from millions of years ago, when that area was located at the bottom of the sea.
Bituminous marls were extracted, by means of a wagon that moved along tracks and, later, they were treated to distill the oil.
In a few years they closed the mining activity, due to its poor economic performance. It was necessary to extract a ton of rock to obtain 60 liters of oil.
