Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a
Norwegian aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
and
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
company, headquartered in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around the world and is active on all
continent
A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, these seven ...
s. The
Norwegian state owns 34.3% of the company through the
Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries. A further 6.5% is owned by Folketrygdfond, which administers the
Government Pension Fund of Norway. Norsk Hydro employs approximately 35,000 people.
Hilde Merete Aasheim has been the CEO since May, 2019.
Hydro had a significant presence in the
oil and
gas industry until October 2007, when these operations were merged with Statoil to form StatoilHydro (in 2009 changed back to Statoil, which is now called
Equinor
Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. I ...
).
History
First steps with fertiliser
Financed by the Swedish
Wallenberg family
The Wallenberg family is a prominent Swedish family, Europe's most powerful business dynasty. Wallenbergs are noted as bankers, industrialists, politicians, bureaucrats, diplomats and military. The Wallenberg sphere's holdings employ about 60 ...
and French banks, the company was founded on December 2, 1905 as Norsk hydro-elektrisk (lit. Norwegian hydro-electric nitrogen limited) by
Sam Eyde, exploiting a novel technology for producing artificial
fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s by fixing
nitrogen
Nitrogen is the chemical element with the symbol N and atomic number 7. Nitrogen is a nonmetal and the lightest member of group 15 of the periodic table, often called the pnictogens. It is a common element in the universe, estimated at se ...
from air. The technology had been developed by the Norwegian scientist
Kristian Birkeland. The method is still known as the
Birkeland–Eyde process
The Birkeland–Eyde process was one of the competing industrial processes in the beginning of nitrogen-based fertilizer production. It is a multi-step nitrogen fixation reaction that uses electrical arcs to react atmospheric nitrogen (N2) with o ...
. The process required large amounts of electric energy, and for this, a power plant was built at the Svelgfossen waterfall near Notodden. Later also
Rjukan Falls was developed and its power harnessed, in the process establishing the city of Rjukan, establishing the plant
Norsk Hydro Rjukan.
Hydro's first factory was built at
Notodden (opened in 1907) followed up with another at
Rjukan,
Tinn
Tinn is a municipality in Telemark in the county of Vestfold og Telemark in Norway. It is part of the traditional regions of Upper Telemark and Øst-Telemark. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Rjukan.
The parish of ...
(opened in 1911). Then in 1920 production was established at
Glomfjord in
Nordland
Nordland (; smj, Nordlánnda, sma, Nordlaante, sme, Nordlánda, en, Northland) is a county in Norway in the Northern Norway region, the least populous of all 11 counties, bordering Troms og Finnmark in the north, Trøndelag in the south, ...
. In 1930 Norsk Hydro opened a plant at
Herøya outside
Porsgrunn
is a city and municipality in Telemark in the county of Vestfold og Telemark in Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Grenland. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Porsgrunn.
The municipality of Porsgrun ...
. To begin with it was to function as a shipping port for the fertilizer as well as a point to import
limestone
Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...
. 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
A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ...
across
Lake Tinn, railway again with the
Tinnoset Line
, logo =
, logo_width =
, logo_alt =
, image_name = MF-Storegut Tinnoset 2004 SRS.jpg
, image_width =
, image_alt =
, caption = The railway ferry MF ''Storegu ...
and a barge ride from
Borgestad to Herøya with
barge
Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels. ...
on the
Telemark Canal. The canal was superseded by the
Bratsberg Line
The Bratsberg Line ( no, Bratsbergbanen) is a railway line between Eidanger and Notodden in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. It opened in 1917, connecting the Tinnos Line, the Sørland Line and the Vestfold Line; allowing Norsk Hydro to t ...
in 1916.
By the 1920s, Norsk Hydro's
electric arc
An electric arc, or arc discharge, is an electrical breakdown of a gas that produces a prolonged electrical discharge. The current through a normally nonconductive medium such as air produces a plasma; the plasma may produce visible light. ...
-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
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies— BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agf ...
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
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
which produced
heavy water, a component the Allied powers in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
feared would be used as part of the
German atomic bomb project
The Uranverein ( en, "Uranium Club") or Uranprojekt ( en, "Uranium Project") was the name given to the project in Germany to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, during World War II. It went through ...
. At the time, German industrial conglomerate
I.G. Farben
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies—BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa, ...
owned stock in Norsk Hydro, which then produced less than of heavy water per month, and the company was approached to increase its deuterium output to at least per month.
Although Hydro's management had previously refused to supply the heavy water, the company relinquished its resistance and agreed to supply 1.5 tons of the material per year upon Norway's surrender to
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.
Consequently, Norsk Hydro's facilities were the target of several commando and air raids and a sabotage raid which eventually
resulted in the plant's destruction and later reconstruction.
First metal production
The first steps towards
light metal
A light metal is any metal of relatively low density. More specific definitions have been proposed; none have obtained widespread acceptance. Magnesium, aluminium and titanium are light metals of significant commercial importance. Their densities ...
production came in 1940 when Hydro started construction of a
magnesium carbonate
Magnesium carbonate, (archaic name magnesia alba), is an inorganic salt that is a colourless or white solid. Several hydrated and basic forms of magnesium carbonate also exist as minerals.
Forms
The most common magnesium carbonate forms are ...
plant at Herøya, but the
German invasion of Norway stopped the plans.
In 1941 the Oslo Consortium (Norwegian: Oslo-konsortiet) invested money equivalent to year 2014 Norwegian kroner 172 million.
(The consortium included
Thomas Fearnley,
Orkla Orkla may refer to:
Places
* Orkla (river), a river in Trøndelag county, Norway
Business
* Orkla Group (or ''Orkla ASA''), a large Norwegian company
* Orkla Mining Company, a historic company in Norway
* Orkla Metall, a former smelting company i ...
,
Fred Olsen
Fredrich Olsen (1891–1986) was a British-born American chemist remembered as the inventor of ball propellant and as a donor or seller to the art antiquities collections of Yale University, the University of Illinois, and the Massachusetts Inst ...
,
Storebrand
Storebrand is a financial services company in Norway. By volume, the company's main activities are related to life insurance and pension savings. However, the company also has major divisions working on investments, banking and, until 1999 and ...
, Jens P. Heyerdahl, Klaveness & Co, Christopher Kahrs Kielland.
[) Collaboration with the Nazi-German regime, did not result in any company employees being convicted ( for collaboration) after the war.][
During the ]Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
Norsk Hydro collaborated with IG Farben
Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG (), commonly known as IG Farben (German for 'IG Dyestuffs'), was a German chemical and pharmaceutical conglomerate. Formed in 1925 from a merger of six chemical companies— BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agf ...
and ''Nordische Aluminium Aktiengesellschaft'' (Nordag) in building new aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It ha ...
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
Årdal og Sunndal Verk or ÅSV is a defunct Norwegian state owned company that operated the aluminum plants in Årdal, Sunndal, Høyanger and Holmestrand. The company was established to take advantage of the hydro-electric power plants in the r ...
. In a merger Hydro acquired this company in 1986, in essence establishing the light metal division Hydro Aluminium
Hydro from Ancient Greek word ὕδωρ (húdōr), meaning ''water''.
Hydro may also refer to:
Energy technologies
* Water-derived power or energy:
** Hydropower, derived from water
** Hydroelectricity, in electrical form
* "Hydro", AC mains ...
.
Since 1919 there had first been zinc
Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...
, 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
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ...
plant in Herøya and in 1963 Hydro started in cooperation with Harvey Aluminum, building a plant at Karmøy to produce aluminium. The plant, called Alnor, was purchased in whole by Hydro in 1973.
In 2000, Hydro acquired Wells Aluminum, a network of aluminium extrusion plants in the United States. Two years later, the company acquired the leading German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
aluminium producer ''Vereinigte Aluminium Werke'' from the German utility company E.ON and the French building systems company Technal
Technal is a brand of Norsk Hydro, the Norwegian group whose business focuses on aluminium extrusions.
Part of Hydro's Building Systems division, Technal is present in Europe, Latin America, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Rep ...
.
Hydro became a truly integrated aluminium company in 2011, when it acquired the aluminium assets owned by Vale
A vale is a type of valley.
Vale may also refer to:
Places Georgia
* Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region
Norway
* Våle, a historic municipality
Portugal
* Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municipa ...
in Brazil. This made Hydro a significant player in bauxite
Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...
mining and alumina refining.
Into the petroleum age
In 1965, Hydro joined Elf Aquitaine
Elf Aquitaine is a French brand of oils and other motor products (such as brake fluids) for automobiles and trucks. Elf is a former petroleum company which merged with TotalFina to form "TotalFinaElf". The new company changed its name to Total ...
and six other French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
companies to form Petronord to perform search for oil and gas in the North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...
. 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
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
.
Hydro acquired in the late 1980s the Mobil
Mobil is a petroleum brand owned and operated by American oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil. The brand was formerly owned and operated by an oil and gas corporation of the same name, which itself merged with Exxon to form ExxonMobil in 1999.
...
service stations in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, changing their name to Hydro. In 1995 Hydro merged its gas station
A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel.
Gasolin ...
s in Norway and Denmark with the Texaco
Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company unt ...
, creating the joint venture
A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...
HydroTexaco. The service station chain was sold in 2006 to Reitangruppen. In 1999 Hydro acquired Norway's third largest petroleum company Saga Petroleum
Saga Petroleum ASA was a Norway, Norwegian Upstream (oil industry), upstream petroleum company established in 1972 that was acquired by Norsk Hydro in 1999. In October 2007 it was made part of Statoil. The company was the only private ownership, f ...
, which had major upstream
Upstream may refer to:
* Upstream (bioprocess)
* ''Upstream'' (film), a 1927 film by John Ford
* Upstream (networking)
* ''Upstream'' (newspaper), a newspaper covering the oil and gas industry
* Upstream (petroleum industry)
* Upstream (software ...
operations primarily in Norway and the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
. 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
Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger. It is primarily a petroleum company, operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. ...
. Under the rules of the EEA the proposal was approved by the European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
on May 3, 2007[EU regulators approve Statoil, Norsk Hydro merger](_blank)
''EU Business'', published 2007-05-03, accessed 2007-06-20 and by the Norwegian Parliament on June 8, 2007.[Norwegian Parliament Okays Statoil-Hydro Merger](_blank)
, ''Ocean-Resources'', published 2007-06-11, accessed 2007-06-20 The merger was completed by 1 October 2007. Hydro's shareholders took 32.7% of the new company—StatoilHydro—shares.
Operations
Aluminium
Hydro is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. In Norway, Hydro has plants in Magnor
Magnor is a village in Eidskog Municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. The village is located from the border with Sweden. The village lies along the Norwegian National Road 2 and the Kongsvingerbanen railway line. The municipal centre, Skot ...
, Rjukan, Raufoss, Vennesla, Karmøy, Høyanger, Årdal, Husnes
Husnes is the largest village in Kvinnherad municipality in Vestland county, Norway. The village is located on the southern shore of the Hardangerfjorden on the Folgefonna peninsula, about south of the village of Herøysund and immediately nort ...
, Sunndalsøra, and Holmestrand. Most of the employees in the company work in plants and offices located outside Norway, such as Germany and Brazil. Hydro has more employees in the United States than any other Norwegian company.
In 2010, Hydro and QatarEnergy inaugurated their 50-50 joint venture Qatalum, located in Qatar
Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it sh ...
. It was the largest aluminium plant ever launched in one step. Its annual capacity in September 2011 was 585,000 metric tons of primary aluminium, all to be shipped as value added aluminium casthouse products. A 1350 MW natural gas power plant was also built to ensure a stable supply of electricity.
In 2010, Hydro acquired the Brazilian bauxite, alumina and aluminium production assets of Vale
A vale is a type of valley.
Vale may also refer to:
Places Georgia
* Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region
Norway
* Våle, a historic municipality
Portugal
* Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municipa ...
, an international mining and metals company.
In September 2013, Hydro combined its aluminium extrusion operations with that of Sapa, making Sapa a 50/50 joint venture between Hydro and the Norwegian company Orkla Orkla may refer to:
Places
* Orkla (river), a river in Trøndelag county, Norway
Business
* Orkla Group (or ''Orkla ASA''), a large Norwegian company
* Orkla Mining Company, a historic company in Norway
* Orkla Metall, a former smelting company i ...
. Hydro
then acquired Orkla's 50% ownership in Sapa in October 2017, taking over the company and turning it into a new business area within Hydro, called Extruded Solutions. The agreed enterprise value for 100% of Sapa was NOK 27 billion.
Energy
Hydro is a major producer of hydroelectric
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...
power in Norway.
To secure electricity for its aluminium production Hydro has signed a power purchase agreement with the Fosen Vind
Fosen Vind is a complex of six onshore wind farms in Fosen, Norway, commissioned in 2018-20. With a nameplate capacity of 1 GW the project is Europe's second largest onshore wind farm (second to the Markbygden Wind Farm); it more than doubl ...
wind farm, which is scheduled to be fully operational in 2020. Under this agreement Fosen Vind will deliver around 0.6 TWh in 2020, around 1.0 TWh annually from 2021 to 2035 and 0.7 TWh annually from 2036 to 2039, for a total of about 18 TWh over a 20-year period.
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.
Environmental issues
In February 2018 Hydro was forced to cut aluminium production by 50% in its plant located in Pará, Brazil (operated by the joint venture Albras
Albras Alumínio Brasileiro S.A. is the second-largest aluminium producer in Brazil having a total annual production of around 460,000 tonnes. It is a joint venture between Norsk Hydro (51%) and Nippon Amazon Aluminium Co. Ltd. (NAAC) (49%). The ...
). This followed allegations that untreated and contaminated water had been released to the environment, resulting in water pollution. A team of local researchers found a clandestine waste pipe and highly elevated levels of aluminum in its proximity. Other substances such as nitrate, sulphate, chloride and lead were also found at abnormally high concentrations. Hydro has since claimed that while some unauthorized spills had happened, their own and independent reports showed no environmental pollution of the river but only a small change in pH.
Chief Executive Officers
* 1905–1917 Sam Eyde
* 1918–1926 Harald Bjerke
* 1926–1941 Axel Aubert
* 1941–1956 Bjarne Eriksen
* 1956–1967 Rolf Østbye
* 1967–1977 Johan B. Holte
* 1977–1984 Odd Narud
Odd Narud (3 February 1919 – 22 April 2000) was a Norwegian businessperson.
He was born in Furnes, and was educated as a siv.øk. He was hired in Norsk Hydro
Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norwegian aluminium and ...
* 1984–1991 Torvild Aakvaag
Torvild Aakvaag (27 January 1927 – 9 April 2020) was a Norwegian businessperson.
He was born in Bærum, and was a cand.jur. by education. He was employed in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1951 to 1956, but left for a career i ...
* 1991–2001 Egil Myklebust
* 2001–2009 Eivind Reiten
* 2009–2019 Svein Richard Brandtzæg
* 2019– Hilde Merete Aasheim
References
External links
*
*
{{Authority control
Electric power companies of Norway
Chemical companies established in 1905
Companies based in Oslo
Economy of Houston
Aluminium companies of Norway
Companies listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange
Multinational companies headquartered in Norway
Norwegian brands
Norwegian companies established in 1905