Kaiser Aluminum

Kaiser Aluminum Corporation is an American aluminum producer. It is a spinoff from Kaiser Aluminum and Chemicals Corporation, which came to be when common stock was offered in Permanente Metals Corporation and Permanente Metals Corporation's name was changed to Kaiser Aluminum and Chemicals Corporation. History Founded in 1946, Henry J. Kaiser's corporation entered the aluminum business by leasing, then purchasing three government-owned aluminum facilities in Washington state. These were the primary reduction plants at Mead and Tacoma, the rolling mill at Trentwood and also an alumina refinery at Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Kaiser benefited at that early juncture from some preferential treatment, the government found it more important to establish a third competitor in the aluminum industry besides Alcoa and Reynolds than to accept the highest bid (by Reynolds). Both Reynolds and Kaiser were also helped by the fact that the government had just gained royalty-free patent rights from Alcoa for an alumina production process in January 1946 (presumably as a result of United States v. Alcoa) and that leasees of government plants were allowed to benefit from the arrangement. In the early 1950s, Kaiser Aluminum grew to be a vertically integrated aluminum producer (minus their own steamship company) with own mines on Jamaica, a refinery at Baton Rouge and smelters and finishing plants in various regional markets, drawing from more war surplus plants (at Newark, Ohio and Halethorpe, Maryland) as well as starting entirely new and fairly large plants (at Chalmette, Louisiana and at Ravenswood, West Virginia). This growth was also stimulated by significant demand created by the military, both for new production, but also for the establishment of the strategic stockpile following the exhaustion caused by the recent war and the next one in Korea.