Recent reports suggest that Novelis expects its Oswego plant to return to operation by December 2025, several months earlier than its original 2026 target. This news offers a sense of relief to the major OEMs, most notably Ford, which has already warned of a financial impact that could reach USD 1 billion.
The hot mill outage took place on September 16, and by early October, restoration activities began. Structural repair crews started rebuilding the damaged roof on October 8, while new trusses started being installed by 22 October. In the same period, engineers constructed extensive scaffolding to dismantle and evaluate electrical systems critical to the hot mill’s function.
However, a brief secondary fire on 10 October confined to the roof-repair zone disrupted the workflow, though it was quickly extinguished, causing no injuries.
As repairs progressed, Novelis’ procurement teams began sourcing thousands of parts needed to rebuild the mill. Of the 2,455 components affected, the company already had 1,900 in inventory when work began. Meanwhile, power was steadily restored to other sections of the plant, enabling the recycling, ingot casting, cold mill, and finishing operations to resume production by late October.
