Urso on the former Ilva: “Develop an extraordinary plan for Taranto.” Italian consortium: today…

“We must develop an extraordinary plan for Taranto, because the closure of the hot-rolling area imposed by the Court of Appeal has triggered a social, productive, and employment bomb that we absolutely must defuse.” This was stated in an interview with Il Mattino by the Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso.

Urso recalled that “the Federacciai board will meet today to assess whether the conditions exist for an Italian consortium that, as hoped by Confindustria, can submit its own proposal under the ongoing tender process, joining those of Jindal and Flacks.”

The August 5 meeting also highlighted the willingness of some industrialists to purchase steel slabs abroad to operate the Taranto cold-rolling area even when the hot-rolling area must be shut down. This will happen by the end of October, when the 90-day period established by the Court of Appeal expires. Essentially, according to a currently broadly existing plan, the steelworkers would supply Taranto with the slabs that the steelmaker can no longer produce due to the plant shutdown. Once transformed into semi-finished products, the steelworkers would collect them for further processing and transformation in their own companies. In this way, while awaiting developments at the former Ilva, the supply chain from Taranto to the steel industry and industrial manufacturing would not be completely interrupted.

Meanwhile, the commissioners of Acciaierie d’Italia have submitted the company’s decarbonization plan to the Ministry of the Environment. The presentation took place on August 3rd and constitutes fulfillment of the Integrated Environmental Authorization issued to the former Ilva by Mase last summer. The commissioners’ plan aims to preserve the authorized production, amounting to 6 million tons of steel per year, even with the new prospect of electric furnaces. However, it is not a binding plan for any potential investor. Which can produce, if desired, less than 6 million tons but no more than 6 million.

The plan calls for two electric furnaces, each with a capacity of 3 million tons, alternating between electric furnaces and blast furnaces, with the latter operating during the transition phase, and completion by June 30, 2030, when there will no longer be any active blast furnaces. The DRI, the pre-reduced waste system, is also planned, to be loaded into the new furnaces to allow them to be fed. The plan, the company told the Region and the Municipality at the meeting at the MIMIT on August 6, is the result of what the local authorities themselves requested. However, now, in light of the judges’ decision, the plan, obviously drafted before the Court’s ruling, is no longer viable, at least in terms of alternating between the two production systems. In any case, the Ministry of the Environment will still convene the AIA’s investigating group and decide what to do.