Alcoa Still Won't Commit to Restarting Indiana Smelter Line

Alcoa Corp. remains unlikely to add aluminum capacity at its smelter in Indiana, President and CEO Bill Oplinger said, citing the $100 million price tag of the project and the likelihood that procuring the necessary equipment could take several years.

Speaking to analysts after Pittsburgh-based Alcoa reported its fourth-quarter results on Jan. 22, Oplinger also said that the large increase in recent months in the Midwest Premium price for aluminum—it now stands at more than $2170 versus about $1615 per ton at the beginning of October—means that the market is now offsetting the more than $1 billion cost increase Alcoa is on pace to incur annually from tariffs.

“The tariffs in their entirety are getting passed on to customers at this point,” Oplinger said on a conference call.

That price signal, along with relatively little new supply expected to come to market globally and an order book Oplinger said remains “strong,” might ordinarily nudge a producer such as Alcoa to invest in capacity such as a restart of an idled fourth line at the company’s Warrick, Indiana, plant. But Oplinger, who has been answering questions about growth at Warrick since last spring, still isn’t ready to commit to adding about 50,000 metric tons of production.

Oplinger’s answer Jan. 22 did differ somewhat from his past responses in that he elongated the expected timeline for a Warrick line restart from about a year to “a couple of years.” The main reason is the time required to procure transformers and other equipment needed to bring back the line. (In an ironic twist, Oplinger during the earnings call also repeatedly said that demand from the electrical sector remains strong as its players invest billions in building transformers, turbines and other key pieces of machinery.)

In the last three months of 2025, Alcoa produced a net profit of $226 million, up from $202 million in 2024’s Q4. Sales were down a tick to $3.45 billion as the company’s production of bauxite was flat year over year while alumina shipments rose nearly 2% and total aluminum shipments climbed 4%. Oplinger and his team expect aluminum shipments this year to be between 2.6 million and 2.8 million metric tons versus a little more than 2.5 million tons in 2025.

Shares of Alcoa (Ticker: AA) were down nearly 3% to $61.34 in midday trading Jan. 23, the day after Oplinger and Beerman reported earnings and held their call. The stock is still up more than 85% over the past six months, though. That surge has pushed the company’s market capitalization past $15 billion.