Novelis announces plant closures

Novelis, the aluminum rolling and recycling company headquartered in Atlanta, has announced that it will close two facilities later this year.

According to a letter dated March 31 sent to WorkForce West Virginia as required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining  Notification (WARN) Act, the company will close its plant at 1800 Speedway St. in Fairmont, West Virginia, by June 30 of this year. The closure is expected to be permanent, Novelis says, affecting more than 200 employees.

The Fairmont site supplies domestic and international customers with more than 435 various sheet and light gauge fin/foil products.

Fairmont Deputy Mayor Josh Rice, who works at Novelis, told WVNews that Novelis officials cited “environmental reasons” for the closure, however, according to a statement Novelis shared with WVNews, the plant’s closure was a difficult decision that was made in the pursuit of “consolidating U.S. operations.”

The Novelis rolling mill at 1801 Reymet Rd. in Richmond, Virginia, also will close, according to a WARN notice dated March 31 that the company filed with Virginia Works. That closure will take place May 30, affecting 72 employees.  

The Richmond site, which Novelis acquired from Aleris in 2020, uses pellet casting technology to produce aluminum rolled sheet for the building and construction industry, according to the Novelis website.

According to Richmond Bizsense, Novelis offered the same reason for the Richmond site’s closure: a consolidation of its U.S. operations. The company added, “As part of Novelis’ long-term growth strategy, we have an opportunity to simplify our operations and streamline our portfolio.”

A Novelis spokeswoman also told Richmond Bizsense that those laid off by the closing potentially could be hired for new positions the company is created across its North American facilities.

Novelis closed its Buckhannon, West Virginia, facility in June 13 of last year. Novelis acquired the facility in 2020 with its purchase of Aleris. That site was built in 1999 to serve the electrical conductor industry and other light-gauge applications with 1350 and 1100 alloy products, later adding the production of 3003 alloys for cookware products.  

The company has invested in a number of expansion projects recently, including constructing a greenfield 600,000-ton recycling and rolling plant in Bay Minette, Alabama, a recycling center in Guthrie, Kentucky, that casts ingot for automotive sheet production and the expansion of the hot mill at its Logan Aluminum joint venture with Tri-Arrows Aluminum in Russellville, Kentucky, to debottleneck 80,000 tons of capacity, which will be commissioned in the first quarter of its 2026 fiscal year.  

Novelis is a subsidiary of Hindalco Industries Ltd., an industry leader in aluminum and copper and the metals flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, a multinational conglomerate based in Mumbai, India.