Novelis will invest an additional $205 million to further expand its global manufacturing operations serving the rapidly growing automotive market. The company will build new finishing lines at its plants in Oswego, New York and Nachterstedt, Germany, dedicated to the production of aluminum automotive sheet.
The two new lines will each have a capacity of 120,000 metric tons per year. The latest expansions are in response to the escalating global demand from automakers for aluminum sheet, which the company expects to grow by more than 30 percent per year through the end of the decade. When the new lines are commissioned in late 2015, Novelis’ global automotive sheet capacity will reach approximately 900,000 tons per year, a three-fold increase from just a year ago.
Novelis aluminum can be found in more than 180 different vehicle models produced by automakers around the globe. Aluminum is becoming the sustainable choice for the latest generation of vehicles because of its low weight and recyclability enabling reduced life cycle emissions.
“With the addition of these two new lines, we have invested nearly $550 million to expand Novelis’ global automotive capacity in the last 2 years alone,” said Phil Martens, Novelis president and chief executive officer.
The company is investing around the world to boost its automotive finishing capabilities. In addition to the two new lines, the company recently commissioned two new finishing lines at its Oswego, New York plant. In addition, a new plant is under construction in Changzhou, China, which is expected to commence production in mid-2014. The company also recently certified automotive production at its Gottingen, Germany, plant that complements the company’s existing automotive facilities in Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Sierre, Switzerland and Nachterstedt, Germany.
Both expansions will further the ongoing development of the company’s automotive closed-loop business model. Today, as much as 50 percent of automotive sheet sold to automakers is left over after a manufacturing plant stamps out automotive parts. The company is working closely with its customers to return this material directly back to Novelis for recycling, streamlining the materials supply chain while reducing the total carbon footprint of the entire automotive production cycle.
The company will invest approximately $120 million to install a third aluminum automotive sheet finishing line at its Oswego plant. In addition, the company will expand its recycling operations for automotive scrap, while making other upgrades. This new investment will result in 90 new jobs at the plant and will increase the company’s North American automotive sheet capacity to more than 400,000 metric tons in just two years.
Published in the February 2014 Edition of American Recycler News