Former Asturian coal shaft whose landmark 51-metre steel extraction tower, the first of its kind in Asturias, still stands at Vega, Langreo.
Pozu Candín I, formally known as Pozo Santa Eulalia and popularly called El Cabritu after its founding owner Manuel Suárez García, was a deep bituminous coal shaft sunk between 1943 and 1946 by the company Carbones de Langreo in the Candín river valley at Vega, Langreo. At 693 metres, it was the second deepest shaft in Asturias. In 1967 Carbones de Langreo was absorbed by the state enterprise Hunosa, and the shaft was redesignated Candín I. A major modernisation in 1973 replaced the original steel headframe with a 51-metre extraction tower equipped with skip winding and a Koepe pulley system, the first such tower installed in Asturias.
A coal washery entered service in 1977 and operated until 1996. Underground connections linked Candín I to the adjacent Candín II shaft and, via a 1.5-kilometre gallery beneath the river Nalón, to the Fondón shaft. The shaft ceased extraction in December 2012.
The extraction tower remains standing alongside the disused washery structure and a block of miners' housing.
The Candín river valley at Vega, in the concejo of Langreo, has a documented mining history stretching back to at least 1792, when an inspection report by the intendant of the Reales Minas de Langreo y Siero identified the seams of this area as among the most productive in the entire enterprise. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and other investigators of the eighteenth century noted coal workings in the valleys of the Candín and Pajomal. Formal demarcation of concessions in the area took place in October 1839, when the Inspector General of Mines, Guillermo Schulz, visited in person to mark out the Presa, Lláscaras, Regadorio, and related concessions.
Ownership of the coal concessions in the Candín valley passed through several hands during the nineteenth century. By 1855 they formed part of the Sociedad Hullera Metalúrgica de Asturias, controlled by the Duke of Riánsares. In 1871 they passed to Fábrica de Mieres, the company consolidated by the French entrepreneur Numa Guilhou, which adopted the Fábrica de Mieres name formally in 1879 under the direction of engineer Jerónimo Ibrán. In the early twentieth century the concessions passed to the Sociedad Anónima Minas de Langreo y Siero.
The site that would become Candín I lies on the right bank of the Candín, at a collar elevation of 235 metres above sea level. On the opposite bank, across an interval of roughly 470 metres, stands the shaft that became Candín II. The right-bank concessions in the area of Respinedo were properties of the entrepreneur Manuel Suárez García, known by the popular nickname El Cabritu, who operated through the company Carbones de Langreo. Suárez began sinking the shaft — initially named Santa Eulalia — in 1943, and inaugurated it in 1946. The shaft reached a total depth of 693 metres, distributed over thirteen working levels, with its lowest plant at a depth corresponding to cota −458.71 relative to the brocal. This made it the second deepest shaft in Asturias, after the Lieres shaft in Siero.
In 1967 Carbones de Langreo was absorbed by the newly formed state coal enterprise Hunosa, and the Santa Eulalia shaft was redesignated Pozu Candín I. Following integration, Hunosa unified the services and installations of Candín I with those of the adjacent Lláscares shaft, redesignated Candín II, which had been sunk in the early 1930s on the left bank by Minas de Langreo y Siero. The two shafts were connected at their lowest working level, at cota −455, in the major restructuring of 1973.
As part of that 1973 modernisation programme, Hunosa replaced the original steel headframe at Candín I with a 51-metre extraction tower, the first structure of this type to be installed in Asturias. The tower was a rigid portal frame of rolled steel with a rectangular closed section, equipped with a bicable Koepe winding pulley of four metres in diameter, matching deflector pulleys, and a 1,200-kilowatt motor. Extraction was carried out using skips at a rate of 350 tonnes per hour. The combined Candín unit became the most productive in Hunosa, reaching monthly output figures approaching 70,000 gross tonnes in peak periods, with an average in the 1970s of around 51,000 gross tonnes per month, of which approximately 62 per cent was saleable coal.
Also in the early 1970s, Hunosa began constructing a slurry lagoon in the adjacent Llerín stream valley to receive tailings from the Candín group washeries. A 40-metre containment wall was built and the lagoon was progressively filled until the washeries closed in 1996. A separate coal washery at the Candín I surface was commissioned in 1977 and operated until 1996, when washing was concentrated at the Lavadero de Modesta in Sama de Langreo.
At the start of 1973 a gallery of approximately 1.5 kilometres was driven south-west from the Candín workings, passing beneath the river Nalón at a depth of 388 metres, connecting Candín I and Candín II to the Fondón shaft and creating an integrated underground unit. In its final operational years all administrative functions and the movement of mining personnel were handled at the Candín II surface, while extraction continued exclusively through Candín I.
A fatal accident on Friday 13 October 1995 killed four workers — Miranda, de la Cruz, Viejo, and García Zapico — in the Señorita seam when a floor movement ruptured the wire mesh backfill at Candín. The shaft ceased coal extraction in December 2012. It was subsequently maintained as an extraction point for the Candín II workings until 2013, when operations at Candín II were also brought to an end.
Surviving surface features at the Candín I site include the 1973 extraction tower and the reinforced concrete structure of the former washery, whose ancillary installations are largely dismantled. A block of miners' housing adjoins the shaft site, and the house of Manuel Suárez, the original proprietor, stands nearby. The Gobierno del Principado de Asturias has included Pozo Candín I in its Inventario del Patrimonio Cultural de Asturias.