Novelis Bay Minette Aluminum Recycling and Rolling Plant

Novelis is building the first fully integrated aluminum mill to rise in the United States in roughly 40 years, on a greenfield site in Bay Minette, Alabama. The plant will melt recycled aluminum scrap and roll it into sheet for beverage cans and automotive parts, running on a design the company says will cut carbon emissions well below conventional mills. What started as a $2.5 billion project has grown to about $4.1 billion as scope and costs climbed, and commissioning has slipped to the second half of 2026.

Project Scope
The mill combines recycling, casting, and rolling under one roof, with an initial capacity of 600,000 metric tons of finished aluminum a year. That vertical setup lets Novelis feed recycled metal straight into the rolling line instead of shipping ingots between sites. Site work began in May 2022 on the sprawling Baldwin County parcel, and the company has framed the plant as a template for additional recycling centers it plans to feed the operation. Novelis, based in Atlanta and owned by India’s Hindalco Industries, is funding the build privately. When it ramps up, the plant is expected to employ around 1,000 workers.

Why It Matters
Aluminum demand keeps climbing as carmakers swap steel for lighter metal and beverage brands lean on cans over plastic, and North American rolling capacity hasn’t kept pace. A domestic mill running mostly on recycled scrap cuts reliance on imported sheet and on energy-hungry primary smelting. Recycled aluminum takes a fraction of the energy that new metal does, so a plant built around scrap has a much smaller carbon footprint per ton. For Alabama, the project lands one of the largest industrial investments in state history and seeds a supply chain of scrap sorters and equipment vendors around Bay Minette. It’s a bet that reshoring basic materials manufacturing can pencil out even at a steep price tag.

Project Team & Details