UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ CENTURY ALUMINUM COMPANY; CENTURY │ KENTUCKY, INC.; CENTURY ALUMINUM OF KENTUCKY │ GENERAL PARTNERSHIP; CENTURY ALUMINUM SEBREE, │ LLC, > No. 23-5543 Plaintiffs-Appellants, │ │ │ v. │ │ CERTAIN UNDERWRITERS AT LLOYD’S, LONDON, │ subscribing to Policy Number B1353DC1703553000, │ Defendants-Appellees. │ ┘ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky at Owensboro. No. 4:18-cv-00118—H. Brent Brennenstuhl, Magistrate Judge.

Argued: March 21, 2024

Decided and Filed: April 4, 2024

Before: SUTTON, Chief Judge; STRANCH and DAVIS, Circuit Judges. _________________

COUNSEL ARGUED: Martin H. Myers, COVINGTON & BURLING LLP, San Francisco, California, for Appellants. Jeremy T. Grabill, PHELPS DUNBAR LLP, New Orleans, Louisiana, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Martin H. Myers, Yurij D. Melnyk, COVINGTON & BURLING LLP, San Francisco, California, Palmer G. Vance II, STOLL KEENON OGDEN PLLC, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellants. Jeremy T. Grabill, Kyle S. Moran, PHELPS DUNBAR LLP, New Orleans, Louisiana, Bobby R. Miller, Jr., Ryan A. Hahn, MILLER HAHN, PLLC, Paducah, Kentucky, for Appellees. No. 23-5543 Century Aluminum Co., et al. v. Certain Page 2 Underwriters at Lloyd’s, London

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OPINION _________________

SUTTON, Chief Judge. Century Aluminum relies on river barges to obtain alumina ore and other materials that it smelts into aluminum. When the Army Corps of Engineers closed key locks on the Ohio River in 2017 due to low water levels and mechanical breakdowns, Century scrambled to secure other transportation. Century filed a claim with the underwriters of its maritime cargo insurance policy, referred to collectively as Lloyd’s of London, for these unanticipated shipping expenses. Lloyd’s paid the company $1 million under the policy’s Extra Expense Clause but denied coverage for the rest of the claim. The district court granted summary judgment to Lloyd’s. We affirm.

I.

Inland waterways play a vital yet sometimes overlooked role in the American economy. See New Albany Main St. Props. v. Watco Cos., LLC, 75 F.4th 615, 619–20 (6th Cir. 2023). About seven percent of all freight tonnage moves by water, with half of that amount traveling over rivers and other inland waterways. Bureau of Transp. Stats. & U.S. Census Bureau, 2017 Commodity Flow Survey 29 (2020), https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census /library/publications/2017/econ/ec17tcf-us.pdf. Most of that cargo sits on massive barges, each of which hauls as much dry cargo as sixteen railway cars or seventy trucks. Thanks to a series of locks, dams, canals, and other projects overseen by the Army Corps of Engineers, these barges ply the Mississippi, Ohio, and other rivers, opening commerce fro