Producer
Fiven (Kymera International)
Formerly the silicon carbide business of Saint-Gobain; spun out in 2019 by OpenGate Capital as Fiven ASA. Acquired by Kymera International (US specialty materials) in June 2024. Self-described as "the world's leading producer of silicon carbide." Operates manufacturing facilities in Arendal and Lillesand (Norway), Hody (Belgium), Barbacena (Brazil), and Puerto Ordaz (Venezuela). Traces its lineage to the Acheson process discoveries of 1891. The Norway plants produce SiC from quartz and petroleum coke using the original Acheson electric furnace method. Produces SIKA® brand SiC grains and powders for abrasive, refractory, ceramics, and industrial applications.
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Inputs supplied
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Goods downstream
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Facilities
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Stories
What they make
1 input Fiven (Kymera International) supplies
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Where they make it
4 facilities
Fiven Arendal SiC Plant (Norway) →
NOArendal, Aust-Agder, Norway · manufacturing
Primary Acheson furnace SiC smelting plant; produces black and green SiC crude and grains. Traces origins to the Norwegian SiC industry established by Saint-Gobain (then Norton Company). Part of Kymera International since June 2024.
Fiven Barbacena SiC Plant (Brazil) →
BRBarbacena, Minas Gerais, Brazil · manufacturing
Brazilian SiC production facility; one of the primary sources of Brazil's ~40,000 t/yr SiC capacity per USGS 2025/2026 world production table. Serves South American abrasives markets.
Fiven Hody SiC Plant (Belgium) →
BEHody, Liège Province, Belgium · manufacturing
Belgian SiC grain and powder processing plant, handling crude SiC from Fiven Norway plants for European abrasive market supply.
Fiven Lillesand SiC Plant (Norway) →
NOLillesand, Aust-Agder, Norway · manufacturing
Secondary Norwegian SiC smelting and processing facility. Lillesand and Arendal together form the Norwegian SiC production cluster, historically one of the largest SiC production concentrations outside China.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map, where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
Silicon Carbide Materials
50%Aluminum & Specialty Metal Powders
30%Reactive Metal Powders
12%Advanced Ceramics & Technical Materials
8%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Chokepoint2024
[single-source][ADMIN: Kymera 2024 acquisition announcement mentions Norway/Belgium/Brazil only — Venezuela plant not confirmed in Kymera portfolio; verify if Puerto Ordaz facility was excluded from acquisition or closed] Fiven (now Kymera International) operates a silicon carbide plant in Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela — one of the few Western-operated heavy industrial facilities remaining in Venezuela. Venezuela's ~30,000 t/yr SiC capacity (per USGS) depends on Fiven continuing operations in a country with severe infrastructure, political, and currency risk. A forced nationalization (as happened to Sidor steel, Venalum aluminum, and other Venezuelan industrial assets in the Chavez/Maduro era) could eliminate ~3% of global non-Chinese SiC capacity from Western control. This facility is quietly one of the most geopolitically exposed industrial assets in the global abrasives supply chain.
Fiven ASA / Kymera International ↗Did you know2023
Fiven-Kymera's silicon carbide powder is a dual-market material that simultaneously serves the most mundane and most advanced manufacturing applications: grinding wheels (used since 1893 to sharpen metal tools) and silicon carbide semiconductor substrates (the enabling material for next-generation EV inverters and 5G base station power electronics). The same SiC powder grains that get bonded into abrasive wheels and sandpaper are also the raw material from which Wolfspeed, STMicroelectronics, and other semiconductor companies grow SiC single crystals (via seeded sublimation) to make wafers. When EV demand surged post-2020, semiconductor manufacturers competed with industrial abrasive makers for SiC powder supply, bidding up prices and extending lead times. Automotive OEMs (Tesla, BYD, GM) who depended on SiC-based inverters for range and efficiency faced indirect exposure to abrasives market dynamics they had never modeled. Norway's Fiven plant, which looks like a 20th-century steel mill, is thus a hidden dependency in the global EV supply chain.
Wolfspeed ↗Origin2022
Fiven (formerly Saint-Gobain Ceramic Materials, divested 2017) is one of the world's oldest silicon carbide producers — SiC manufacturing in Norway dates to the early 20th century when the country's abundant hydroelectric power made the extremely energy-intensive Acheson process economical. The Acheson process (patented by Edward Acheson in 1893) fuses silica sand with petroleum coke at 2,400°C in electric resistance furnaces; producing one ton of SiC requires approximately 6,000-8,000 kWh of electricity. Norway's cheap hydroelectric power (among the world's lowest electricity costs) gave Fiven a structural cost advantage that has proven durable for over a century. Kymera International (backed by American Securities) acquired Fiven in 2022 to combine silicon carbide with its metal powder portfolio, creating a combined specialty materials platform. The combined company sits at the intersection of two emerging structural growth markets: EV power electronics (where SiC semiconductors are replacing silicon in inverters) and metal additive manufacturing (where aluminum and titanium powders are the feedstock). The Fiven acquisition gives Kymera exposure to the semiconductor SiC substrate supply chain — the same powder used in grinding wheels is the upstream precursor for wafer-grade SiC.
Fiven ↗