Syracuse, N.Y. – Ford Motor Co. confirmed Thursday that a fire last month at the Novelis aluminum plant in Oswego County will chop up to $1 billion off its earnings between 2025 and 2026.
In its third quarter earnings report, the company said its 2025 adjusted earnings before interest and taxes will take a $1.5 billion to $2.0 billion hit from the disruption the fire has caused to its truck production.
Ford said its expects to mitigate at least $1 billion of the Novelis-related adjusted EBIT “headwind” in 2026. The full hit from the Novelis plant fire will be taken in the company’s fourth quarter this year, it said.
“The Ford team, including myself, have been onsite at the Novelis plant in Oswego, New York,” Jim Farley, Ford president and CEO, said in a statement.
“We are working intensively with Novelis and others to source aluminum that can be processed in the cold rolling section of the plant that remains operational while also working to restore overall plant production. We have made substantial progress in a short time to minimize the impact in 2025 and recover production in 2026.”
The company reported net earnings of $2.4 billion in the third quarter, up from $900 million in the same period last year.
The fire broke out in the roof of the plant’s hot mill around 10 p.m. on Sept. 16, forcing workers to evacuate the building. No one was injured, but the fire took more than 20 fire departments four hours to extinguish.
The hot mill is where aluminum ingots are heated as part of the process that turns them into sheets of rolled aluminum.
Other parts of the plant suffered water damage but have reopened.
Novelis said earlier this month that it expected to be able to reopen the hot mill in the first quarter of 2026. But on Thursday, the company said it it has accelerated the timing of the mill’s reopening to the end of December.
“We are dedicating the full strength of our resources to recovery and working 24/7 to restore the hot mill and repair the building,” Novelis spokesperson Lauren Thompson said in a statement. “We have made considerable progress over the past few weeks, which has allowed us to accelerate our timing.”
The repairs include rebuilding 40,000 square feet of the mill’s total roof surface of nearly 1.5 million square feet, she said.
Thompson said the cause of the fire is still under investigation “as we continue to gain more access to the hot mill area.”
Analysts estimated earlier this month that Ford’s earning could take a hit of up to $1 billion between 2025 and 2026 because of the disruption the fire has caused in the company’s production.
The Novelis plant is a major supplier of aluminum sheet that Ford uses to make body panels for its trucks, including its popular F-series pickups.
Ford said Thursday it plans to increase its F-150 and F-Series Super Duty production by more than 50,000 trucks in 2026 to meet demand and recover from production losses caused by the Novelis fire.
The company said it will add a third crew at its Dearborn Truck Plant at the Ford Rouge Complex in Michigan for F-150 production and additional employees at its Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville for F-Series Super Duty assembly. In total, it will create up to 1,000 new jobs, it said.
F-150 Lightning assembly at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center will remain paused as the company prioritizes gas and hybrid F-Series trucks, which are more profitable for Ford and use less aluminum.
Once known for making aluminum beverage cans, the Novelis facility in Scriba near Oswego switched its focus to supplying aluminum for the auto industry in 2014. It employs 1,150 people, making it one of Oswego County’s largest employers.
