“The arrival of Qatalum is a landmark event for Hydro in North America. We can now offer a powerful combination of both primary and remelt extrusion billets to the market,” said Matt Aboud, Hydro’s director of sales, sourcing & trading. “Our multiple global and domestic sources ensure that Hydro’s customers in the Americas will have a stable, reliable source for quality metal.”

Qatalum is a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Norsk Hydro ASA. The plant has first-phase capacity of nearly 645,000 tons of primary aluminum. All of the facility’s production will be shipped in the form of value-added, alloyed casthouse products. The extrusion ingot casthouse has a capacity of 386,000 tons per year. The primary foundry alloys casthouse has a capacity of 303,000 tons per year.

Qatalum is based in Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia between Kuwait and Dubai on the Persian Gulf.

About Hydro
The Metal Market unit of Norsk Hydro provides aluminum to manufacturers in the Americas. Based in Norway, Norsk Hydro employs 23,000 people in 40 countries and has activities on all continents. Hydro is the world’s third-largest aluminum supplier, the largest single manufacturer of primary metal and extruded aluminum products in Europe, and a leader in delivering innovative light metal solutions to the automotive and building industries worldwide.

In North America, Hydro provides aluminum solutions including supply sourcing, extrusion, finishing, and fabrication of components, as well as engineering and contract manufacturing services, for a variety of industries.
http://www.hydro.com/northamerica/

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