Additional fire threatens accelerated reopening schedule for Ford aluminium supplier Novelis’ Oswego plant
Just days after reporting “substantial progress” in the recovery and rebuilding of its plant in Oswego, New York following a fire in September, another fire has broken out at the plant, threatening to delay its reopening.
Novelis' plant in Oswego, New York was due to reopen before the end of the year
Novelis
The aluminium rolling and recycling company has confirmed
that the fire, which started at around 8:45am in New York, was extinguished,
and everyone working at the plant was safely evacuated without any injuries
reported.
It is not yet clear how this will impact the reopening of
the plant, which was initially expected in early 2026 but, as result of “substantial
progress” in its recovery and rebuilding efforts, it was announced in October
that the hot mill would restart in December 2025.
In a recent update on November 11, Novelis shared that it was
still on track to restart the hot mill in accordance with this accelerated
schedule.
This is not the first fire to break out at the facility since the initial blaze in September. A small fire occurred on October 10 during roof repair work at the plant, but was quickly extinguished. Novelis said the incident was minor and would not affect the recovery timing for hot mill operations
Novelis is a key aluminium supplier to Ford, as well as
other OEMs like Stellantis, VW Group and Volvo Cars. Ford, in its Q3 2025
financial results, estimated the impact
of the Novelis fire to Ford’s operations to total up to $1 billion.
In order to counter this, Ford said it plans to increase
production of its F-150 and F-Series Super Duty models by more than 50,000
units in 2026, announcing significant investment to achieve this goal.
It also said it will continue to pause assembly of the
electric F-150 Lightning vehicle as it prioritises ICE and hybrid F-Series
trucks, which it says are more profitable and use less aluminium.
Automotive Logistics will continue to monitor this
situation and provide updates.
