History
Yara’s history began over a hundred years ago, when Norsk Hydro was founded by industrialists Sam Eyde, Kristian Birkeland and Marcus Wallenberg. Norsk Hydro used Norway’s large hydroelectric-energy resources to produce its first product, mineral fertilizer. The company pioneered direct nitrogen fixation, called the Birkeland-Eyde Process. This contribution to the fertilizer market attracted global attention as the product enabled farmers to boost their yields.
Norsk Hydro was founded on advanced research. This work was driven by a need to diversify and develop new industries. Even though the production of mineral fertilizer was successful, the company expanded into other businesses, from fertilizers to oil and metals.
The company adopted an international perspective early, sending its first shipment to China in 1913. In 1969, Norsk Hydro entered its first joint venture, with authorities in Qatar. With access to a competitive source of gas and a strategic location in the Middle East, the joint venture opened up a global market for the company.
By the 1970s, the company was established in Asia, the Middle East and North America. The late 1970s to the mid-1980s was a period of rapid growth, through the acquisition of major fertilizer companies in France, Germany, Holland and the UK. At the end of the 1990s, the company was also established in Brazil and South Africa.
In 2004, Hydro Agri demerged from Norsk Hydro and became an independent company called Yara International ASA. The company was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange on March 25, 2004.
Since then, Yara has continued to expand its global presence through investments in other countries, such as Canada, Libya, Australia and Switzerland. The company is currently the world's leading provider of mineral fertilizer, with operations in more than 50 countries spread over six continents.
Read more about this topic: Yara International
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)