Alcan - History

History

The Northern Aluminium Company Limited was founded in 1902, in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada, as part of the Pittsburgh Reduction Company. In 1913, the company opened a kitchen utensil production plant and foundry in Toronto. It opened a rolling mill in the plant a few years later.

During the First World War (1914–18), aluminium production shot to 131,000 tonnes from 69,000.

In 1925, the company was renamed the Aluminum Company of Canada. The Aluminum Company of Canada was responsible for rapid development in Arvida, today a part of the city of Saguenay in Quebec, by contributing to the construction of major ports and railway facilities. It began production at its sheet rolling and extrusion facility in Ontario in 1940.

In 1931, the Northern Aluminium Co. Ltd. or Alcan Industries Ltd. pig and rolled Aluminium factory was opened on land acquired in 1929 on the east of the Southam road, in the then hamlet of Hardwick. The various Alcan facilities on the 53-acre site closed between 2006 and 2007. The factory was demolished between 2008 and 2009. The laboratory was also closed in 2004 and demolished in 2009.

In 1945, the Aluminium Company of Canada was officially registered under the trade name Alcan. In 1951, it initiated a $500-million project at Kitimat, British Columbia, the largest public-private partnership ever introduced in Canada at the time.

In 1994 Alcan sold their building products unit (with a plant in Scarborough) to Genstar Capital Corporation and the location later closed and demolished.

Between 1998 and 2001, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean became the largest construction site in North America, as Alcan undertook a $3-billion construction project in Alma with a yearly production capacity of 400,000 metric tonnes. In 2000, Alcan acquired Algroup (Alusuisse Group Ltd.), merging the companies to become Alcan, Inc. in 2001. Alcan became the second biggest primary aluminium production company. It then became the world's largest aluminium manufacturer in 2004 after acquiring the Pechiney Group, the fourth player in worldwide production and fabrication of aluminium and the number 3 in packaging.