Fact sheet: Hydro Aluminium Suzhou
(May 25, 2005) Hydro Aluminium Suzhou is positioned in the Suzhou Industrial Park, northwest of Shanghai, close to many automotive customers for lightweight precision tubing components. The precision drawn tubes and multi port extrusions manufactured at the site will be available in a number of tempers and alloys.
Hydro already supplies the majority of the world's car manufacturers and suppliers.
As a 100 percent owned subsidiary, the precision tubing operations at Suzhou will operate the same fully tested equipment and processes and have the same technical and operational support as its sister sites in Europe and the US.
Hydro Aluminium Suzhou establishes benchmark facilities and processes with a superior production quality over that which is currently available in China. This includes chip-less cutting and better heat treatment processes that provide more uniform grain size, more advanced and uniform mechanical properties and greater precision. With such a strong quality control heritage as its foundation, our Suzhou plant will soon be ISO/TS 16949 and ISO 14000 certified.
The Hydro Suzhou buildings are 15,600 m2 and sit on a site of more than 90,000 m2 to allow expansions that can double sales volume.
Hydro Aluminium Suzhou represents a total investment of approximately USD 30 million. At present, the plant has 63 employees, but this will grow up to 140 as the first phase of the plant reaches full capacity later in the year.
The decision to build the plant was announced in December 2003. The ground breaking took place on April 28, 2004, and 11 months later the first billet was extruded.
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