First steps with fertiliser
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. The method is still known as the Birkeland–Eyde process. 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 in Tinn Municipality (opened in 1911). Then in 1920 production was established at Glomfjord in Nordland county. 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, Rjukan Line, connecting Rjukan with Hærøy. The railway opened in 1909 and consisted of a railway ferry across Lake Tinn, railway again with the Tinnoset Line and a barge ride from Borgestad to Herøya with barge on the Telemark Canal. The canal was superseded by the Bratsberg Line in 1916.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, a component the Allied powers in World War II feared would be used as part of the German atomic bomb project. At the time, German industrial conglomerate I.G. Farben owned stock in Norsk Hydro, which then produced less than 3 usgal of heavy water per month, and the company was approached to increase its deuterium output to at least 30 usgal per month.[6] Although Norsk Hydro's management had previously refused to supply the heavy water, upon Norway's surrender to Nazi Germany, the company gave up its resistance and agreed to supply 1.5 tons of heavy water per year.[6]
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.
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.
In 1941 the Oslo Consortium (Norwegian: Oslo-konsortiet) invested money equivalent to year 2014 Norwegian kroner 172 million.[7] (The consortium included Thomas Fearnley, Orkla, Fred Olsen, Storebrand, Jens P. Heyerdahl, Klaveness & Co, Christopher Kahrs Kielland.[7]) Collaboration with the Nazi-German regime, did not result in any company employees being convicted (for collaboration) after the war.[7]
During the Second World War Norsk Hydro collaborated with IG Farben and Nordische Aluminium Aktiengesellschaft (Nordag) in building new aluminium and magnesium plants in support of the German war effort.
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 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
