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Borgestad Fabrikker’s history
Borgestad Fabrikker was founded in 1887 – to produce building brick, glazed ‘Dutch’ roofing tile and drain pipe – by Gunnar Knudsen, a vigorous entrepreneur and prominent figure in Norwegian politics (and Norway's Prime Minister 1908-1910 and again 1913-1920).
The same year, Porsgrund Porcelain also ‘opened its doors for business’. To produce its flatware, Porsgrund used refractory ‘saggers’. When worn or broken, these were discarded in the nearby fjord.
Knudsen saw this as a waste of good material. Having heard that producers overseas used spent saggers in the production of refractory brick, he installed a small kiln at Borgestad Fabrikker in 1889, and began production of refractory brick.
The first production was delivered to Ulefos Iron Foundry. Borgestad quality quickly gained a reputation as the equal of any imported product. By 1904, when Norsk Hydro opened its Notodden Nitrate Factory, Borgestad had effectively phased out all its brick and tile production in favour of refractory brick. By 1914, production output had reached 9,000 tons per year.
With the building boom following WWII, demand for refractory brick increased dramatically. Faced with order backlogs up to two years, Borgestad increased production capacity. In 1950, a 78-meter tunnel kiln came on line, with annual output of 20,000 tons of refractory brick. Later, refractory monolithics were added to the range.
Borgestad purchased Höganäs Bjuf in 1998. By 2001, all Borgestad Fabrikker refractory brick production was centralized at the Höganäs Bjuf plant, located in the town of Bjuv in southern Sweden. Refractory monolithics are produced under license at the nearby Calderys Nordic production unit in Höganäs.
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