Norsk Hydro

From Wikicompany

Norsk Hydro ASA is a Norwegian oil & energy provider, and an integrated aluminium manufacturing company.

The company is the second largest oil and gas operator on the Norwegian continental shelf and the third largest integrated aluminium company world wide.

Hydro has operations in some 40 countries around the world and is active on all continents. The company employs about 36,000 people.

The Norwegian state holds a 43.8 percent ownership interest in the company.

From 2001, Eivind Reiten has been the CEO.

History

The company was founded on 1905-12-02 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. Hydro's first factory was built at Notodden followed up with another at Rjukan, Tinn.

During the Second World War the Rjukan plant was the only location in Europe which produced heavy water, and consequently was the target of several commando and air raids which eventually resulted in the plant's destruction and later reconstruction. (This story was portrayed in the Kirk Douglas movie The Heroes of Telemark).

In 1999 Hydro acquired another Norwegian oil and gas company Saga Petroleum.

In 2002 Hydro acquired the leading German aluminium producer VAW from the German utility company E.ON.

Hydro's fertilizer business was spun off as a separately stock-listed company under the name of Yara on March 26 2004. Hydro distributed all its Yara shares to Hydro's shareholders and presently has no ownership in Yara.

In May, 2005, Norsk Hydro AS 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.