Building & Construction
October 28, 2025
Kaiser updates expansion projects, raises EBITDA outlook again
Written by Stephanie Ritenbaugh
Kaiser Aluminum said work is progressing on expansions at two of its plants: the Trentwood rolling mill in Washington and Warrick packaging rolling mill in Indiana.
At the Trentwood mill, the company said it is nearly finished with the installation of its Phase 7 plate-capacity expansion project for aerospace and general engineering applications.
The 12-week outage impacted Kaiser’s third-quarter sales, reducing conversion revenue for aerospace and general engineering plate by about $15 million to $20 million.
At Kaiser’s Warrick facility, a fourth coating line is progressing through its qualification phase. The plant produces coil for beverage and food packaging.
“September marked our strongest output to date on the new line with momentum continuing into October,” Keith Harvey, chairman, president, and CEO said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “We anticipate reaching full run rate in time to support 2026 shipments.”
“This project remains central to our strategy of shifting the majority of the mill’s output to coated products, a segment where Warrick already holds a market-leading position. As we approach full-run rate, increased throughput will begin to satisfy our customers’ demand needs, and start-up costs will begin to taper off.”
Overall, Franklin, Tennessee-based Kaiser reported third-quarter net income of $40 million, or $2.38 per diluted share, up from $9 million, or $0.54 per diluted share, in the same period last year.
The company again upwardly revised its full-year adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) outlook, now expecting improvement of 20%-25% year-over-year due to “strengthening underlying performance and rising metal prices.” Gains are partially offset by start-up costs tied to the company’s key strategic investments. In July, Kaiser raised its EBITDA guidance to 10%-15% above last year’s level.
Packaging demand
Asked about cost inflation affecting packaging demand, Harvey said Kaiser is still seeing strong demand.
“I think there are some industry incidents that can exacerbate some of the supply scenario at different times. I know we had our challenges at the beginning of the year. I think others have had some challenges,” Harvey said. “Overall, I feel the demand for aluminum substrate products and packaging are very strong.”
“I’ll remind you that a good portion of our business is food related, and that’s held up very strong,” Harvey added. “We still continue to see that outpace the demand for beverage. So, we may be insulated from that somewhat based on the markets that we serve.”
Capacity
One analyst noted that a competitor had an outage and customers are looking for spare capacity. Harvey responded that Kaiser’s can sheet capacity is “fairly full right now.”
“It’s really difficult for me to see when others have challenges because I’ve lived those before,” Harvey said. “A lot of times, we’re in positions to help our customers. I think our customers have expectations that Kaiser – we want you to hit your commitments to us. And we’re beginning to do those very well as our equipment ramps up. We’re really not in a place to do anything other than that.”
He continued, “A lot of that is probably bare product that’s coming into the market. And we’ve been busy shifting our capacity more to the coated side.”
