Hydro Husnes, formerly Sør-Norge Aluminium AS or SØRAL is one of seven aluminium producers in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The company is located in

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 north ...

Kvinnherad Kvinnherad is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Sunnhordland, along the Hardangerfjorden. The municipality was the 5th in siz ...

. The plant includes facilities for producing raw aluminium by

electrolysis In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses Direct current, direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of c ...

, casthouse for

casting Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or ...

extrusion ingots,

silo A silo () is a structure for storing Bulk material handling, bulk materials. Silos are commonly used for bulk storage of grain, coal, cement, carbon black, woodchips, food products and sawdust. Three types of silos are in widespread use toda ...

s for storing

aluminium oxide Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several Aluminium oxide (compounds), aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as alum ...

and a

dock The word dock () in American English refers to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore). In British English, the term is not used the same way as in American Engl ...

. The plant has 240 employees and a net production of 180,000 metric tons. The company was acquired and became a subsidiary of

Norsk Hydro Norsk Hydro ASA (often referred to as just ''Hydro'') is a Norway, Norwegian aluminium and renewable energy company, headquartered in Oslo. It is one of the largest aluminium companies worldwide. It has operations in some 50 countries around th ...

on 1 November 2014.

History

The idea of a smelting plant in Kvinnherad was conceived in 1959, after two seasons of very poor results for the local fishing industry. With the second wave of industrialization sweeping over Norway, it was decided that Husnes, a remote, flat area with good access to shipping lanes and access to the massive electric power needed, would be an ideal site for an aluminium smelting plant. Following a prolonged period of preparation and paperwork, Sør-Norge Aluminium, or SØRAL for short, was formed on June 29, 1962, with 1.000.000 NOK (10.500.000 NOK in 2014) in invested capital. Construction of the plant itself began the following year, and the first production line, "Hall A", opened for production in November 1965. The secondary production line, "Hall B", opened in March 1966, and in October 1966, the plant was officially opened by Sverre Walter Rostoft, the then-Norwegian minister for industry. During the early years, the plant struggled with getting enough local manpower, which led to an increase in importing workers from other regions in Norway (especially from

Finnmark Finnmark (; ; ; ; ) is a counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. By land, it borders Troms county to the west, Finland's Lapland (Finland), Lapland region to the south, and Russia's Murmansk Oblast to the east, and by water, the Norweg ...

Troms Troms (; ; ; ) is a Counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. It borders Finnmark county to the northeast and Nordland county in the southwest. Norrbotten Län in Sweden is located to the south and further southeast is a shorter border with ...

) and other countries, like

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

. At the time, the plant had 485 employees and produced 60.000 metric tonnes of aluminium every year. Production remained stable during the 1970s, 80s and 90s, as the local community gradually expanded around the plant, which was the main source of income for most families in the area. During the next twenty years, Husnes grew from a small farming village to an expanded urban area with shopping centres, schools and sports facilities. During the early 2000s, due to a gradual fall in aluminium prices, the production rate slowed down, and the company began suffering losses for the first time in forty years. Eventually, the situation led to the closure of Hall B in 2009, followed by severe downsizing, affecting almost half the workers on the plant. In 2014, following two years of speculation in whether the company would manage to recover, the plant was purchased by

, renaming the plant Hydro Husnes. In 2019, Norsk Hydro announced the upgrading of

operations at the plant with an investment of NOK 150 million, enabling the plant to deliver a wider range of aluminum products geared towards the automotive market once the new facilities become operational in 2020.

References

External links

"Hydro Husnes"
Information on parent company's website. Retrieved 15 November 2015. {{DEFAULTSORT:Soeral Aluminium companies of Norway Companies based in Hordaland Kvinnherad