Oswego, NY – A second major fire at the giant Novelis aluminum plant near Oswego damaged “highly specialized” equipment, making it difficult to estimate when the facility might return to full operation, the company first disclosed.
The Nov. 20 fire was contained to the plant’s hot mill and hot mill engine room, the same general area affected by the Sept. 16 fire, the company said in a filing with the Oswego County Industrial Development Agency.
Repairs after the September fire focused on the structural integrity of the hot mill, removing the 5 million gallons of water poured on the fire to put it out and rebuilding its roof, the company said.
After that first fire, Novelis estimated it would take three months to get the hot mill, a critical part of the mammoth plant, back up and running.
After the November fire, however, the company gave no estimate of when the hot mill would be back in operation.
While the September fire was extinguished mainly on the roof of the mill, Novelis said the November fire damaged equipment in the finishing rolling mill section of the hot mill.
“The parts for finishers are highly specialized and all must be checked for refurbishing or rebuilding,” he said. “With that said, the timeline for recovery has yet to be determined.”
Details of the damage caused by the second fire are contained in a Dec. 29 application to the Industrial Development Agency for a tax exemption related to repairs.
Novelis said the latest repairs will cost an estimated $255 million, including $187.5 million in sales tax materials. She requested tax exemptions on up to $15 million worth of these materials.
The company said it had already spent $165 million of the $255 million on repairs and backups and invested another $90 million.
The development agency is scheduled to vote on the requested tax exemptions at a special meeting Wednesday.
It took firefighters from more than 20 departments four hours to extinguish the September blaze, and a similar firefighter response extinguished the November blaze.
County and company officials say the causes of both fires are still under investigation. Novelis said the repairs created 600 temporary construction jobs at the plant off Route 1A in Scriba.
The fires shut down the plant’s hot mill, where the processing of aluminum ingots into sheet metal for the automotive industry, beverage cans and other markets begins.
The fires led to changes in plant management and sent shock waves through the domestic automotive industry.
The plant produces about 40% of the aluminum used by U.S. automakers and counts Ford Motor Co. as its largest customer.
Ford announced in October that it expects the September fire to cut up to $1 billion from its revenue between 2025 and 2026 due to disruptions in aluminum supplies. The automaker did not say how much it expects the second fire to hurt its earnings.
Novelis estimates the first fire will reduce its cash flow by up to $650 million, although it expects insurance to cover most of the loss. It did not provide an updated estimate of the damage caused by the second fire.
While its hot rolling mill is shut down, other parts of the plant process aluminum that has undergone initial processing at other facilities in the Novelis network and in similar industries, the company said. The company says the plant’s 1,150 employees remain in their jobs.
The plant, one of Oswego County’s largest employers, routinely produces more than 1 billion pounds of aluminum sheet annually. It is the largest wholly owned aluminum rolling and recycling facility in North America with an annual payroll of $182 million.
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