Ford is shutting its Kansas City assembly plant, which makes its best-selling F-150 pickup, because of a shortage of natural gas caused by severe winter weather hitting much of the country.
"To ensure we minimize our use of natural gas that is critical to heat people's homes, we decided to cancel operations for a week, beginning Saturday, February 13," Ford said in a statement. "We expect to return to normal operations on Monday, February 22."
About 200 million people were under some sort of weather-related alert Tuesday as a winter storm pummeled much of the United States. After hitting Texas and Oklahoma especially hard, the storm was expected to move out through the Northeast late Tuesday, leaving a trail of heavy snow and ice in its path, CNN Meteorologist Tyler Mauldin said.
Oil and natural gas prices rose sharply this week as the storm disrupted normal operations in the Permian Basin, the fracking capital of the United States. The price of natural gas jumped more than 5% Tuesday.
General Motors confirmed that it canceled the first shift at four plants Tuesday, but that was due to the weather and not a shortage of natural gas. The plants are located in Spring Hill, Tennessee; Ft. Wayne, Indiana' Bowling Green, Kentucky; and Arlington, Texas. The company said it would make a decision on the second shift later Tuesday, based upon local weather conditions. Stellantis, the new name of the company previously known as Fiat Chrysler, confirmed it shut its Toledo, Ohio, Assembly plant, also due to weather.
Other automakers are likely to see their operations disrupted as well, according to industry sources. But the other automakers did not immediately respond a request for comment.
Source: CNN
