High-altitude alpinists face more challenges than just reaching the summit. The human body needs as much as 10 liters of water a day at high altitudes. Expedition climbers therefore spend hours and hours melting snow, making them heavily dependent on outdoor stoves and fuel that can work in different conditions.

Just before his solo expedition to Mount Everest in 1995, Göran Kropp realized that he was missing something important. Why were there no outdoor stoves that could be run on different kinds of fuel? There was an engineer at Primus called Joakim Grönvik (later the CEO of the company – for nine years) who could not resist this challenge. After many attempts, he found the answer that Göran was looking for.

Göran Kropp cycled from Sweden to the Himalayas, soloed Everest and became the first Scandinavian to climb the world’s highest mountain by fair means (without additional oxygen). His new stove worked better than expected and the prototype became a finished product. This was the inspiration for the continued development of what many people consider to be the world’s most advanced outdoor stove –Primus OmniFuel, the only outdoor stove that can be run with gas, gasoline/petrol, diesel, kerosene/paraffin, and even aviation fuel.

Simone Moro is an Italian climber who has climbed many of the world’s summits over 8,000 m without bottled oxygen. In 2005 he became one of the first people in the world to climb Shisha Pangma in Tibet (8,013 m) during the winter season and said:

“It was the most extreme cold I’ve ever experienced. At its lowest the temperature dropped down to minus 50°C, but the OmniFuel stoves worked as good as ever. Words can barely describe how important that was to the expedition.”

Primus’ stove, OmniLite Ti, is based on the same technology as OmniFuel, but it is lighter and has a minimal pack size. It has been adapted for use with the new generation of fuel-efficient pots with a heat exchanger, which reduces fuel consumption considerably. 

Product development is at the very heart of Primus. Products are tested in extreme cold, heat and wind,in the laboratory, in real environments and at external test institutions. Products that come up to our exacting standards and meet strict environmental requirements will be accepted and will help to achieve Primus’ objective – to cook, heat and provide light for small and large adventures throughout the world.