Swiss Aluminium
| Industry | Industrial electrochemistry, hydropower, packaging, chemicals, extrusions, sheets and plates |
|---|---|
| Fate | acquired by Alcan |
| Predecessor | Aluminium Industrie Aktien Ges. (AIAG), 1888 Schweizerische Aluminium AG (1963) |
| Successor | Algroup (1998) Alcan (2000) |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Headquarters | Zurich, Switzerland |
Alusuisse was a Swiss industrial group founded as Aluminium Industrie Aktien in 1898 in Zurich, Switzerland. The organisation was named Schweizerische Aluminium AG from 1963, Alusuisse-Lonza Holding AG from 1990, and Algroup from 1998.
From the 1900s became a significant employer in the Valais canton through its aluminum production activities; a byproduct of the aluminium production process: fluorine became the subject of a pollution scandal ( guerre du fluor) after its public reporting in the 1970s. In the late 1960s the company also became involved in another contentious public issue through its joint venture Nabalco which was developing a bauxite deposit in northern Australia on land claimed by the indigenous people of that area; leading to the Gove land rights case.
By the end of the twentieth century the company had become an international firm with interests in aluminium production, packaging, and chemicals (through the firm Lonza acquired 1974, divested 1999), and employed over 30,000 worldwide (1997).
The group was acquired by Alcan on 18 October 2000.
In 1886 Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult and Charles Martin Hall independently discovered a process for producing metallic aluminium from aluminium ore by electrolysis (Hall–Héroult process). In 1889 Paul-Louis-Toussaint Héroult, Gustave Naville, Georg Neher, and Peter Emil Huber established a company Aluminium Industrie Aktien Gesellschaft (AIAG) in Zurich, Switzerland to extract aluminium, creating the first aluminium production plant in Europe. It established plants in Neuhausen am Rheinfall in 1888, in Rheinfelden, Germany in 1898 and in Lend, Austria in 1899.
In 1899 the company started to invest in the Valais region of Switzerland which was rich in hydropower resources. The company built a plant in Chippis (1908) using hydropower from the river Navisence. The market for their aluminium did not meet expectations and the company began to use some of the electrical production for nitric acid manufacture (Birkeland–Eyde process); during the Great Depression the company sold electricity from its plants to municipal customers. A rolling mill was established in Sierre in 1929. In the 1950s the company acquired a concession to 30% of the flow from the dam built at the Lac de Moiry, and constructed a factory at Ernen. A factory in Steg was established in 1962. The company became a major employer in the Valais region, employing over 3000 in 1942, by 1970 the approximately 2000 were employed in the canton.
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