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Executive Vice President for the Aluminium Metal busi-
ness area in Hydro, Hilde Merete Aasheim, presented
Innovation in Hydro – the Aluminium Metal Business
System (AMBS), and gave examples of how Hydro is
using R&D and Technology as a key to improve value
creation for the company. Ludvig Egeland, Chairman
of Eramet Norway AS, presented: "Why produce man-
ganese-alloys and perform R&D in Norway". One of the
reasons for continued research activities in Norway is
the 100 years of accumulated knowledge of Ferro alloy
production in Norway, and the industrial drive to contin-
uous improvement and innovation.
The second day of the Spring meeting was allocated to
the Strategic and Long-Term goals for the SFI Metal
Production. Gabriella Tranell presented the status of the
Strategy process. Aasgeir Valderhaug then presented
the FFF (The Norwegian Ferroalloy Producers Research
Association) strategy, followed by Helene Flatmark "Eyde
model – an example of industry clusters" and Stig Tjøtta/
Hydro "Research, Strategy and Communication". Hogne
Hongseth ended this session with “Industry Norway AS
– vision or a wild idea! Is the Norwegian Metal Industry
a forgotten business in the shadow of the oil industry?”.
At the beginning of the Autumn meeting, held 26-27 of
October, Professor Emeritus Jørgen Randers, Climate
Strategy, BI Norwegian Business School gave a one-
hour talk about "The 2052 Forecast: What will happen?
How can metal production contribute?" to an audience
of more than 100 people. A very inspiring talk about fu-
ture challenges facing humanity. The rest of the Autumn
meeting was dedicated to scientific results, activities
and work Plans for 2017.
The idea behind the SFI concept is to promote basic re-
search at a high international level. The centre goal is
a long-term investment in research, building a strong
dynamic research community. The SFI shall give added
value to the participating partners and spin-off effects
through competence and recruitment with an impact far
beyond the lifetime of the centre. The creation of Spin-
Off projects or associated projects with relevance for the
SFI are a KPI´s for the centre. Two new projects have
been established since the start-up;
1) IPN – Waste to Value where a Post Doc candidate is
shared between the SFI RD3 Refining & Recycling and
the IPN-project. The project is a cooperation between
several of the partners in the SFI.
2) ElMet – An Efficient Simulation Method for Current
and Power distribution in 3-Phase Electrical Smelting
Furnaces. The latter is organised and carried out at
Teknova.
As a follow up of the Spring meeting, the Strategy pro-
cess and long-term goals for the SFI Metal Production
was one important topic also at the Autumn meeting.
The SFI Strategy includes Competence and communi-
cation goals – i.e specific scientific competence (knowl-
edge, skills and candidates), Long Term Technology
goals i.e. 1) Reduction of climate-, and toxic- emissions,
2) Energy efficiency (coordinated with FME HighEff), 3)
Raw material shortages, and Vision projects.
The Government's expert committee for Green compet-
itiveness delivered its report, with proposals and rec-
ommendations to the Prime Minister, Erna Solberg and
Minister of Climate and Environment, Vidar Helgesen
in October 2016. The Norwegian Process Industries'
Roadmap – Combining Growth and Zero Emissions by
2050, was one of several Roadmaps that was requested
by the expert committee as input to the report. Several
members of the SFI team participated in this work. The
Green Competitiveness Report will be a guideline for the
SFI Metal Production.
Several applications to the Research Council of Norway
with relevance to the SFI were submitted by the SFI team
in 2016. These include a KPN "Controlled Tapping - max-
imize metal yield, maximize operation load and mini-
mize hazardous tapping conditions in the ferroalloy in-
dustry", and an IPN with the title "BEST aluminium cast
slab quality by Studying and Implementing Measures to
reduce oxide- and carbide inclusions".
The SFI is very proud to announce that an application to
the International partnerships for excellent education,
research and innovation (INTPART), a very important
contribution to the SFI, was granted in 2016. The title of
the project is INTPART - Metal Production. The overall
goal is to establish and develop a long-term cooperation
between the institutions of NTNU, SINTEF, MINTEK and
North-West University (NWU, South Africa) regarding
research and higher education. The main topic of the
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SFI Metal Production in 2016