Glava AS is a Norwegian

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 industrial company with headquarters in Askim

Askim

is a town and a municipality in Østfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Askim. Askim was established as a municipality on 1 January 1838 ....

. The name is a portmanteau of the Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

 word glassvatt, meaning glass wool

Glass wool

Glass wool or fiberglass insulation is an insulating material made from fiberglass, arranged into a texture similar to wool. Glass wool is produced in rolls or in slabs, with different thermal and mechanical properties....

. Glass wool used as insulation

Thermal insulation

Thermal insulation is the reduction of the effects of the various processes of heat transfer between objects in thermal contact or in range of radiative influence. Heat transfer is the transfer of thermal energy between objects of differing temperature...

 material is the company's main product. Production takes place at the company's production facilities in Askim and Stjørdal

Stjørdal

is a municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. It is part of the Stjørdalen region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Stjørdal, also called Stjørdalshalsen...

. Glava employs around 500 people, and in 2007 had a revenue just short of NOK

Norwegian krone

The krone is the currency of Norway and its dependent territories. The plural form is kroner . It is subdivided into 100 øre. The ISO 4217 code is NOK, although the common local abbreviation is kr. The name translates into English as "crown"...

 1,500 million.

The company's history goes back to 1935, when industrialist Jens Bull was offered licensed production in Norway of glass wool, originally a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 invention. The company was originally called "Glassvatt". During the post-war reconstruction of Norway, Glava grew dramatically, as the need for insulation of buildings became clear. The product is today made on a licence from the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 company Saint-Gobain

Saint-Gobain

Saint-Gobain S.A. is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of construction and high-performance materials.The company has its head...

. It is produced from borosilicate glass

Borosilicate glass

Borosilicate glass is a type of glass with the main glass-forming constituents silica and boron oxide. Borosilicate glasses are known for having very low coefficients of thermal expansion , making them resistant to thermal shock, more so than any other common glass...

, which is heated to around 1,400 °C before being stretched into fibres.

In 1959, the company was responsible for the so-called "ice block expedition

Ice block expedition of 1959

The ice block expedition of 1959 was a publicity stunt carried out by the Norwegian insulation material producer Glassvatt . Responding to a challenge from the radio station Radio Luxembourg, Glassvatt decided to equip a truck to bring a three-ton block of ice from Mo i Rana by the Arctic Circle,...

", later called "the world's greatest publicity stunt". The expedition consisted in bringing a three-ton block of ice from Mo i Rana

Mo i Rana

Mo i Rana is a town in the municipality of Rana, Nordland, Norway, located just south of the Arctic Circle and in the region Helgeland. The town is called "Mo i Rana" to distinquish it from other places named Mo - most notably the town of Mosjøen, also in Helgeland - though locally the town is...

 by the Arctic Circle

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....

, to Libreville

Libreville

Libreville is the capital and largest city of Gabon, in west central Africa. The city is a port on the Komo River, near the Gulf of Guinea, and a trade center for a timber region. As of 2005, it has a population of 578,156.- History :...

 by the Equator

Equator

An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....

, without using any form of refrigeration

Refrigeration

Refrigeration is a process in which work is done to move heat from one location to another. This work is traditionally done by mechanical work, but can also be done by magnetism, laser or other means...

.