Kaiser Aluminum Corporation is an American aluminum producer. It is a spinoff from Kaiser Aluminum and Chemicals Corporation, which came to be when common stock was offered in Permanente Metals Corporation and Permanente Metals Corporation's name was changed to Kaiser Aluminum and Chemicals Corporation.[6]
Founded in 1946, Henry J. Kaiser's corporation entered the aluminum business by leasing, then purchasing three government-owned aluminum facilities in Washington state. These were the primary reduction plants at Mead and Tacoma, the rolling mill at Trentwood and also an alumina refinery at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Kaiser benefited at that early juncture from some preferential treatment, the government found it more important to establish a third competitor in the aluminum industry besides Alcoa and Reynolds than to accept the highest bid (by Reynolds).[7] Both Reynolds and Kaiser were also helped by the fact that the government had just gained royalty-free patent rights from Alcoa for an alumina production process in January 1946 (presumably as a result of United States v. Alcoa) and that leasees of government plants were allowed to benefit from the arrangement.[8]
In the early 1950s, Kaiser Aluminum grew to be a vertically integrated aluminum producer (minus their own steamship company) with own mines on Jamaica, a refinery at Baton Rouge and smelters and finishing plants in various regional markets, drawing from more war surplus plants (at Newark, Ohio and Halethorpe, Maryland) as well as starting entirely new and fairly large plants (at Chalmette, Louisiana and at Ravenswood, West Virginia). This growth was also stimulated by significant demand created by the military, both for new production, but also for the establishment of the strategic stockpile following the exhaustion caused by the recent war and the next one in Korea.
Kaiser Aluminum previously owned a subsidiary that developed real estate, including in Rancho California, California; Oregon, Washington, and Arizona.[9] In 1986, Kaiser Aluminum sold the bulk of the $450 million real estate holdings to an investor group led by Peter B. Bedford.[9]
In 1988, Charles Hurwitz and his company Maxxam, Inc. purchased KaiserTech Ltd, the Oakland-based parent of Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Company.[10] Kaiser Aluminum filed for bankruptcy in 2002, due to labor disputes, the West Coast energy crisis, and asbestos liabilities. The steel workers union was suspicious of Hurwitz on the collapse of the Kaiser Aluminum Corporation and closely watched his 1995 FDIC lawsuit because Hurwitz has a history of loss-plagued businesses.[11]
The company emerged from bankruptcy four years later.[12] In March 2006, Kaiser Aluminum determined to restate its financial statements for the quarters ended March 31, 2005; June 30, 2005; and September 30, 2005, to adjust its VEBA-related payments and derivative financial instrument transactions.
The company previously owned a stake in Anglesey Aluminium, a joint venture with Rio Tinto Group. The smelter at this facility was closed in 2009, and the entire facility was fully closed in 2013.[13]
In April 2021, Kaiser Aluminum completed acquisition of Alcoa Warrick, LLC, renaming it Kaiser Warrick, LLC. Kaiser entered into a long term ground lease with Alcoa; Alcoa retains its on site four unit coal fired generating station, smelting assets, and land assets with the remainder of the facility to be operated by Kaiser. Presently, Kaiser Aluminum Warrick operates a cast house, hot mill, cold mills, finishing mills/coating lines, and slitter lines, producing flat rolled aluminum sheet for the food and beverage container market.[5] In July 2021, Kaiser Aluminum announced plans to construct an additional roll coating line at Kaiser Aluminum Warrick, at a cost of approximately $150 Million dollars. Construction of this line is expected to begin by the first half of 2022, and achieve initial operational capability by 2024.[14]
About
Kaiser Aluminum is headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee. In 2020, it recorded revenues of roughly US$1.173billion. Kaiser currently owns 13 fabricating plants that can produce more than 400,000,000 pounds (180,000 long tons) of aluminum annually.[when?] The North American plants produce approximately 500,000,000 pounds (220,000 long tons) per year of value-added sheet, can sheet, plate, extrusions, forgings, rod, bar, and tube.
With the acquisition of the former Alcoa Warrick, LLC (now Kaiser Warrick, LLC), Kaiser Aluminum now[when?] employs approximately 3,700 persons.[citation needed]
The alumina refinery at Baton Rouge (1946–) (30°27′36″N91°11′06″W / 30.45996°N 91.18505°W / 30.45996; -91.18505 (Baton Rouge alumina plant)) began life as Plancor 226-AO. a Bayer process plant on 318 acres with a capacity of 500,000 tons of alumina per year, built at a cost of $25,683,385. The plant was closed and put on standby in July 1944. It began to produce again in December 1946, when since April[18] under 5-year lease by Kaiser, at a time when Kaiser share at the Mead smelter reached 4 potlines. B. Rouge replaced the previous utilization of stockpiled alumina at Mead, but only enough soda ash was allotted by the government to run Baton Rouge at 85% of the Mead requirements at the beginning.[19] Together with the almost finished Chalmette plant, its capacity was decided to be increased in November 1951, to 800,000 tons per year.
The war surplus smelter at Tacoma (1947–) (47°14′29″N122°27′34″W / 47.24139°N 122.45944°W / 47.24139; -122.45944 (Tacoma smelter)) was bought outright by Kaiser for $3,000,000 in December 1946 with another $1,000,000 estimated to be needed to make it a viable operation. During the war the $6,309,240[20] and 41,500,000 pounds per year reduction plant was operated as by the Olin Industries, Inc..[21]Plancor 245 was a 100-acre facility with 233,000sqft under roof including 2 pot room buildings with a total of 240 Soderberg pots, the only one of the DPC plants making use of the process,[22] and the one with the poorest wartime performance record. Power provided by the Bonneville Power Administration.[23]
Soda ash plant at Owens Lake (1947–1950) (36°26′00″N117°57′03″W / 36.4332°N 117.9509°W / 36.4332; -117.9509 (Owens lake soda ash plant)). In the spring of 1947 Kaiser entered into 20-year lease with the state of California to extract approximately 500,000 tons of brine per year from Owens Lake, to be converted to 100,000 tons of soda ash.[24] This plant was rapidly constructed and produced at 100 tons a day by April, filling a critical bottleneck.[25] The plant was closed in 1950, after the supply situation had been dealt with.[26]
In 1948 the war surplus rod mill later to become the rod and wire mill at Newark (1948–) (precisely at 40°00′55″N82°27′57″W / 40.01541°N 82.46577°W / 40.01541; -82.46577 (Newark rod and wire mill)) was purchased by Kaiser Aluminum. Built as Plancor 936, a bar and rod mill of 300,000,000 pounds/year capacity costing $23,198,000, operated during wartime beginning May 1943 by Alcoa. Ingots 486m pounds/year, blooming 348m, 180m pounds of blooms usable for production of 150m pounds of rods and bars.[27][28] In January 1947 was leased by the Reynolds Metals Company.,[29] but in September 1947 again offered for purchase or lease by the government.[30] The equipment that was in 1954 still in operation from those early days of wartime production were remelt furnaces, one 38-inch 2-high blooming mill and one 22-inch 3-high finishing mill. New equipment was installed at a cost of $9,000,000 and surveyed thusly in 1954: one 10-inch finishing mill, wire drawing machines, stranding bays, continuous vulcanizing machines and plastic tuber, banbury mixer, rubber mills, triplers and quadrupler and finally electrical conductor test equipment. The wire mill trains started out with 12 feet long and 6 inches square ingots, cut down to pieces of 70-inch length and then rolled on the 10-inch mill into a 3/8-inch rod nearly 1/2 mile long in 55 seconds, in total 235,000 pounds per shift. Rods and bars were either sold, or rods were used to make wires up to 0.0056 inches thin. The wire train started with nine 8 and 10-die tandem drawing machines, followed if desired by one 13-die machine, followed if desired by one of twenty up-to-16-dies machines for the finest wire. Intermediate anneals as necessary. Wires could then be stranded around aluminum and steel cores or coated with insulation. Wire production capacity of 18,000,000 pounds / year.[31]
Construction of a 100,000 tons/year smelter at Chalmette (1951–), on the banks of the Mississippi River (precisely[32] at 29°56′15″N89°58′52″W / 29.9376°N 89.98117°W / 29.9376; -89.98117 (Chalmette smelter)) was announced November 1950. Shortly before the plant started production at the end of 1951, doubling of the capacity was decided, primarily first for military stockpiling amidst the Korean War. As a consequence this incurred an increase by 60 percent of the Baton Rouge refinery, together with matching increase of bauxite mining in Jamaica.[33] Construction at Chalmette started February 20, 1951, production commenced on December 11 with completion of the first potline. Eight potlines were expected to produce 400,000,000 pounds per year when completed mid-1953. This would then bring Kaiser aluminum production to 790,000,000 pounds per year or 28 percent nationwide. Total spending on Chalmette was $45,000,000.[34] The plant had 16 pot-room buildings, two for each pot line, each room with 72 Soderberg-type pots of 40 pounds per hour capacity. Six of the lines were powered by 16 AC generators with rectifiers, two lines were powered by 80 1650hp Nordberg radial gas engines each driving a DC generator. Fuel requirements amounted to 50 billion cuft of natural gas per year.[35] Potline #2 went into production on March 5, 1951.[36] A 9th potline was later added in the spring of 1958.[37]
In March 1951, as part of a $78,000,000 expansion program that included paying of the total debt to the government of $37,394,250, Kaiser leased for 5 years the aluminum and magnesium extrusion plant at Halethorpe (1951–) (39°14′23″N76°40′49″W / 39.23972°N 76.68028°W / 39.23972; -76.68028 (Halethorp extrusion forge)). (recently 7th potline at Mead)[38] The government had been trying to privatize the $7,000,000 war surplus facility since at least the spring of 1946. During the war, the plant was operated by the Revere Copper & Brass Co.[39] The plant was with Kaiser Alu until at least 1961.[40]
On February 11, 1953, first shipment of 10,000 tons from Port Kaiser (precisely at 17°51′45″N77°36′18″W / 17.86255°N 77.60492°W / 17.86255; -77.60492 (Port Kaiser), also called Little Pedro Point) was loaded onto the SSEvanthia (ex-George Bellows USMC hull 1947 EC2-S-C1, Greek flag, owned by P.J. Goulandris & Sons). The mine was 13 miles away from the port facilities, connected by a Kaiser-built railroad. Total capacity of the 19,000-acre mining claim on Jamaica was 2,000,000 tons of bauxite per year, estimated to last for at least 50 years. The $12,000,000 mining operation on Jamaica replaced the former source in South America. Differences in ore composition and increased capacity necessitated a $23,000,000 expansion and remodeling program at Baton Rouge, bringing the capacity there to 800,000 tons of alumina per year. Baton Rouge was the supply for all 3 (Mead, Tacoma, Chalmette) smelters. The overall expansion program to reach 800,000,000 pounds per year corporation-wide was approximately worth $200,000,000.[41]
In August 1954, plans for the construction of a new plant (later to become an integrated mill at Ravenswood (1955–)) on the banks of the Ohio River (38°55′58″N81°49′34″W / 38.93264°N 81.82616°W / 38.93264; -81.82616 (Ravenswood integrated mill), precisely) were announced. Work was to begin in January 1955 on a 72 million pounds re-roll facility to be supplied by Trentwood. Immediately to follow was a program to upgrade the plant to become capable of all rolling and finishing steps and produce 250 million pounds of sheets and foil from supplies of aluminum pig out of the Chalmette plant near New Orleans. This was number 3 of Kaiser production plants in the east, after Newark (rod, bar, wire, electrical conductor) and Halethorpe (extrusions).[43] In 1958 the plant included 4 potlines with a capacity of 145,000 tons per year and a new hot rolling mill began operation. Bauxite was delivered from Jamaica via Baton Rouge (for refining). The favorable near-market location at Ravenswood, and the shortening of the production chain by cutting out the Washington state plants, came at the price of no cheap source of power. A 40-year contract for 450,000kW of coal-generated electricity was made with the Ohio Power Company. The plant ran around-the-clock in the summer of 1958, additional cold-rolling capacity was planned with the goal of reaching a capacity of 175,000 tons per year. The capital investment in Ravenswood up to that point was approximately $200,000,000.[44]
A flourspar mine at Gabbs (-1957), closed in 1957 due to depletion.[45]
A flourspar mill at Fallon (-1957) placed on standby in 1957.[45]
A magnesium plant at Manteca, California, probably never owned by Kaiser. Built as Plancor 707. An emergency reserve operation of inferior efficiency, the plant was shut down in June 1944 when no longer needed after being in operation for 18 to 20 months.[46] The still government-owned plant was activated in January 1951 and operated by Kaiser Aluminum.[47]
Production
A delivery contract for 186,000 tons of primary aluminum from Canada in the years 1953-1958 was announced on May 25, 1953. A similar contract with Alcoa called for 600,000 tons in the same period. Almost all was to be provided by Alcan, who was expecting to start production at Kitimat in the summer of 1954.[48]
Alcoa Corporation is a Pittsburgh-based industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling.
Charles Martin Hall was an American inventor, businessman, and chemist. He is best known for his invention in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminum, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron. He was one of the founders of Alcoa, along with Alfred E. Hunt; Hunt's partner at the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, George Hubbard Clapp; Hunt's chief chemist, W. S. Sample; Howard Lash, head of the Carbon Steel Company; Millard Hunsiker, sales manager for the Carbon Steel Company; and Robert Scott, a mill superintendent for the Carnegie Steel Company. Together they raised $20,000 to launch the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which was later renamed Aluminum Company of America and then shortened to Alcoa.
Henry John Kaiser was an American industrialist who became known for his shipbuilding and construction projects, then later for his involvement in fostering modern American health care. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of those that built the Hoover Dam. He established the Kaiser Shipyards, which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. He led Kaiser-Frazer followed by Kaiser Motors, automobile companies known for the safety of their designs. Kaiser was involved in large construction projects such as civic centers and dams, and invested in real estate, later moving into television broadcasting. With his wealth, he established the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, non-partisan, charitable organization.
A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-finished casting products are made from molten pig iron or from scrap.
Arvida is a settlement of 12,000 people (2010) in Quebec, Canada, that is part of the City of Saguenay. Its name is derived from the name of its founder, Arthur Vining Davis, president of the Alcoa aluminum company.
The Bauxite & Northern Railway is a Class III railroad operating in the United States state of Arkansas. BXN operates over 7 miles (11 km) of track in Bauxite, Arkansas. Traffic consists of largely of alumina, and the railroad hauls 4,059 carloads per year. In 2005, the railroad was purchased by holding company RailAmerica. In December 2012, Genesee & Wyoming acquired the railroad in its acquisition of RailAmerica. As of 2023, Bauxite & Northern Railway interchanges with Union Pacific in Bauxite, Arkansas and can hold up to 286,000 pounds of supplies.
The Consolidated Steel Corporation was an American steel and shipbuilding business. Formed on 18 December 1928, the company built ships during World War II in two main locations: Wilmington, California and Orange, Texas. It was created by the merger of Llewellyn Iron Works, Baker Iron Works and Union Iron Works, all of Los Angeles. The company entered the shipbuilding business in 1939. In 1948, now a pioneer producer of large-diameter pipelines, Consolidated Steel was renamed Consolidated Western Steel and acquired by U.S. Steel and operated as a wholly-owned subsidiary.
Paranam is a town in the Para District, Suriname. Paranam was created in 1938 for a bauxite factory. In 1965, an aluminium smelter was added. The factories closed down in 2017.
Kaiser Steel was a steel company and integrated steel mill near Fontana, California. Industrialist Henry J. Kaiser founded the company on December 1, 1941, and workers fired up the plant's first blast furnace, named "Bess No. 1" after Kaiser's wife, on December 30, 1942. Then in August 1943, the plant would produce its first steel plate for the Pacific Coast shipbuilding industry amid World War II.
Articles related to Guinea include:
Volta Aluminum Company, known as VALCO, is an aluminium company based in Tema, Greater Accra Region founded by Kaiser Aluminum and now wholly owned by the government of Ghana.
Aluminium smelting is the process of extracting aluminium from its oxide, alumina, generally by the Hall-Héroult process. Alumina is extracted from the ore bauxite by means of the Bayer process at an alumina refinery.
Industry in Ghana accounts for about 24.5% of total GDP. However, Ghana's industrial production is rising at a 7.8% rate, giving it the 38th fastest growing industrial production in the world due to government industrialization policies.
The Permanente Quarry and cement plant is in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County, California, just west of Cupertino. The limestone and aggregate mining operation and cement plant is owned by Lehigh Southwest Cement, a subsidiary of Heidelberg Cement. Limestone was mined beginning in 1902 but remained a small operation until 1939 when it was purchased by Henry J. Kaiser to supply the 5.5 million barrels of cement to build Shasta Dam. With increased production Kaiser supplied all of the cement used by the Navy in the Pacific Theater of World War 2. At 7 million barrels, it was more cement than the Shasta Dam project. Roughly 70 percent of the cement used in the communities of Santa Clara County was acquired from the cement plant.
The aluminum industry in the United States in 2023 produced 860 thousand metric tons of aluminum from refined metal ore, at six smelters. In addition, US industry recycled 3.4 million tons of aluminum . Total annual imports of metal and alloy for use in secondary production stood at 2.6 million metric tons in the year to August 2023, with the previous decade seeing a fundamental shift toward recycled production.
China Hongqiao Group Limited is a company founded in 1994 that specializes in the production of aluminium. Hongqiao is currently the second largest aluminium producer in the world after Chinalco. It is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with stock code 1378, and is incorporated in George Town, Cayman Islands.
Aluminium metal is very rare in native form, and the process to refine it from ores is complex, so for most of human history it was unknown. However, the compound alum has been known since the 5th century BCE and was used extensively by the ancients for dyeing. During the Middle Ages, its use for dyeing made it a commodity of international commerce. Renaissance scientists believed that alum was a salt of a new earth; during the Age of Enlightenment, it was established that this earth, alumina, was an oxide of a new metal. Discovery of this metal was announced in 1825 by Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, whose work was extended by German chemist Friedrich Wöhler.
Compagnie des bauxites de Guinée (CBG) is a Guinean mining company. Since 1963 it has extracted bauxite from the notable mine in Sangarédi, in Boké Region in Guinea. It is 49% owned by the Guinean State, with the remainder owned by the Boké Investment Company, a 100%-owned subsidiary of Halco Mining, a consortium opened in 1962 by Harvey Aluminum Company to run mining operations in Guinea. Halco's stock is owned by Alcoa (45%), Rio Tinto Alcan (45%) and Dadco Investments (10%).
The Columbia Steel Company, sometimes shortened to Columbia Steel, is an American steel company headquartered in the state of Oregon. It had its origins in 1901, but did not officially organize under its current name until 1909.
↑ Kaiser Industries Corporation, Oakland, California (1968). "The Postwar Gamble". The Kaiser Story(PDF). p.39. Archived from the original(PDF) on June 16, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2016.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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US$1.173 billion (2020) [1] 
