The Pedersen Process was invented by Harald Pedersen in the 1920s and used in Norway for over 40 years before shutting down due to the Pedersen Process being less economically competitive than the Bayer Process. However, it is believed a modern Pedersen process could be economically viable with "low-quality" bauxite, as even though "low-quality" bauxite has less alumina in the form of trihydrate gibbsite, it has more iron oxide which would be converted to pig iron in the smelting process instead of red mud.