Everything about Norsk Hydro totally explained
Norsk Hydro ASA ( ) is a
Norwegian aluminium and
renewable energy company, headquartered in
Oslo. Hydro is the fourth largest integrated aluminium company worldwide. It has operations in some 40 countries around the world and is active on all continents. The
Norwegian state holds a 43.8 percent ownership interest in the company, which employs approximately 28,000 people.
Eivind Reiten has been the CEO since 2001.
The company had a significant presence in the
oil and
gas industry until October 2007, when these operations were merged with rival Statoil to form
StatoilHydro.
History
The first steps with fertilizer
Financed by the Swedish
Wallenberg family and French banks, the company was founded on
December 2,
1905 as
Norsk hydro-elektrisk Kvælstofaktieselskab (lit. Norwegian hydro-electric nitrogen limited) by
Sam Eyde, exploiting a novel technology for producing artificial
fertilizers by fixing
nitrogen from air. The technology had been developed by the Norwegian scientist
Kristian Birkeland, who originally intended to use it in the construction of an electric
cannon. The fertilizer was an important boost for the food production in Europe, which was insufficient for the population at the turn of the century. The process required large amounts of electric energy, and for this, a power plant was built at the
Svelgfossen waterfall near
Notodden. Later also
Rjukanfossen waterfall was developed and its power harnessed, in the process establishing the city of
Rjukan.
Hydro's first factory was built at
Notodden (opened in
1907) followed up with another at
Rjukan,
Tinn (opened in
1911). Then in
1912 production is established at
Glomfjord in
Nordland. In
1930 Norsk Hydro opened a plant at
Herøya outside
Porsgrunn. To begin with it was to function as a shipping port for the fertilizer as well as a point to import
limestone. From
1936 Hydro also started producing fertilizer at Herøya. There was also opened a railway,
Rjukanbanen, connecting Rjukan with Hærøy. The railway opened in
1909 and consisted of a
railway ferry across
Tinnsjø, railway again with
Tinnosbanen and a barge ride from
Borgestad to Herøya with
barge on the
Telemark Canal. The canal was superseded by the railway line
Bratsbergbanen in 1916.
By the 1920s, Norsk Hydro's
electric arc-based technology for manufacturing artificial fertilizer was no longer able to compete with the newly developed
Haber-Bosch process, and in
1927 the company formed a partnership with the German company
IG Farben in order to gain access to this process. By
1945, IG Farben had become a majority shareholder in Norsk Hydro. The plant at
Herøya was a direct result of no longer being dependent on immediate proximity to the power sources. This provided the advantage of being able to have the plants and the shipping port in the same location, as was the case with the Herøya plant.
Heavy water production at Rjukan
The Rjukan plant was the only location in
Europe which produced
heavy water, an essential component in the efforts to make an atom bomb, and consequently was the target of several commando and air raids and a sabotage raid which eventually
resulted in the plant's destruction and later reconstruction. (This story was portrayed in the
Kirk Douglas movie
The Heroes of Telemark.)
The first metal
The first steps towards
light metal production came in
1940 when Hydro started construction of a
magnesium carbonate plant at Herøya, but the
German invasion of Norway stopped the plans.
During the
Second World War Norsk Hydro collaborated intimately with
Nazi Germany during the first part of the war. Besides IG Farben, Norsk Hydro also cooperated closely with the
Luftwaffe-operated
Nordische Aluminium Aktiengesellschaft (Nordag) in building new
aluminium and
magnesium plants in support of the German war effort. The construction was however ended on July 24,
1943 when an allied bombardment completely destroyed the facilities, killing 55 construction workers. As Germany's defeat became more likely, Norsk Hydro started to tone down its collaborative relations with the occupier.
In
1946 the
Årdal aluminium plant was opened, operated by the state owned company
Årdal og Sunndal Verk. In a merger Hydro acquired this company in
1986, in essence establishing the
light metal division
Hydro Aluminium.
Since
1919 there had first been
zinc, then aluminium production at
Glomfjord in Northern Norway. Hydro bought the power plant in
1947 and started ammonia production there instead. In the 1950s Hydro opened a new
magnesium plant in Herøya and in
1963 Hydro started in cooperation with
Harvey Aluminum a plant at
Karmøy to produce aluminium. The plant, called Alnor, was purchased in whole by Hydro in 1973.
In 2002 Hydro acquired the leading
German aluminium producer
Vereinigte Aluminium Werke from the German utility company
E.ON.
Into the petroleum age
In
1965 Hydro joined
Elf Aquitaine and six other
French companies to form
Petronord to perform search for oil and gas in the
North Sea. Hydro soon became a large company in the North Sea petroleum industry, and also became operator of a number of fields, the first being
Oseberg.
In 1969 Hydro started its first international operations, with a 25% stake in a fertilizer plant in
Qatar.
Hydro acquired in the late 1980s the
Mobil service stations in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, changing their name to
Hydro. In
1995 Hydro merged its
gas stations in Norway and Denmark with the
Texaco, creating the
joint venture HydroTexaco. The service station chain was sold in
2006 to
Reitangruppen. In
1999 Hydro acquired Norway's third largest petroleum company
Saga Petroleum, which had major
upstream operations primarily in Norway and the
United Kingdom. The British operations were later sold.
Hydro's fertilizer business was spun off as a separately stock-listed company under the name of
Yara International on March 26,
2004. Hydro distributed all its Yara shares to Hydro's shareholders and presently has no ownership in Yara.
In December
2006 Norsk Hydro revealed a proposal to merge their oil business with compatriate oil and gas company
Statoil. Under the rules of the
EEA the proposal was approved by the
European Union on May 3, 2007 and by the
Norwegian Parliament on June 8, 2007. The merger was completed by
1 October 2007. Hydro’s shareholders took 32.7% of the new company—
StatoilHydro—shares.
Operations
Energy
Hydro is a major producer of
wind and
hydroelectric power. In May 2005, Norsk Hydro became a major backer of a
Portuguese wave-farming project to produce electricity from wave power. The project will use Pelamis P-750 Wave Energy Converters developed by Ocean Power Delivery to produce an estimated 2.25
megawatts of
renewable energy in the subsequent year.
Aluminium
Hydro is the fourth largest integrated
aluminium company world wide. In Norway Hydro has plants in
Rjukan,
Porsgrunn,
Vennesla,
Karmøy,
Høyanger,
Årdal,
Sunndalsøra,
Holmestrand,
Magnor and
Raufoss. The corporation also has plants abroad.
Hydro Agri
Though Hydro started off as a fertilizer producer and agricultural products was for a long time one of the companies major ventures, the agricultural division was in
2004 demerged into the independent company
Yara International, listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.
Chief Executive Officers
Further Information
Get more info on 'Norsk Hydro'.
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