Italy’s Acciaierie d’Italia has begun the physical shutdown of blast furnaces at its Taranto steelworks, trade unions told Platts Energy on Nov. 3, in a move that marks the effective end of ironmaking at Italy’s once largest steel producer. The company informed union representatives on Nov. 3 that contractor LIZ Italia had begun switching off the burners used to maintain the cowper stoves of the blast furnaces in a preheating state, with all shutdown activities expected to be completed by the end of the week, unions said.
The move follows an Oct. 30 ruling by Italy’s Supreme Court, the Corte di Cassazione, which rejected extraordinary appeals filed by both Acciaierie d’Italia and Ilva in extraordinary administration against a Milan Court of Appeal order requiring the shutdown of the hot-end section of the steelworks on environmental grounds. The ruling covers all hot-end assets: blast furnaces N1, N2 and N4, as well as the coking batteries, all of which had been kept in preheating conditions.
The Taranto plant, formerly known as Ilva and once the largest integrated steelworks in Europe, has been at the center of a prolonged legal, financial and environmental dispute. Its curtailment carries significant implications for European flat steel supply and for trade flows of both raw materials — including coking coal and iron ore — and finished steel products such as hot-rolled coil.
While ironmaking operations are being wound down, unions said limited activity in the rolling division is still planned, though on an intermittent basis.
The intermittent rolling activity suggests the plant may be processing residual semi-finished steel inventory rather than material produced on-site, given that no pig iron has been produced at Taranto since the last operational blast furnace, BF N2, was halted in early October and subsequently placed in preheating mode. BF N1 has been inactive since May 2025, when it was seized without right of use by the Taranto public prosecutor’s office following a fire. BF N4 had been halted for maintenance and was originally scheduled to restart at the end of April, but the restart never took place.
The future of the facility remains uncertain ahead of a Nov. 9 deadline for binding offers to acquire the company. Antonio Gozzi, chairman of Federacciai and head of an Italian consortium evaluating a potential purchase of Acciaierie d’Italia, told S&P Energy by phone Nov. 3 that the group had completed its due diligence but was still weighing all available information because of the situation’s complexity.
Gozzi said that while importing semi-finished products for re-rolling could serve as a transitional solution, it is not thinkable for the business over the long term. “In the long term, there is the need for Acciaierie d’Italia to produce crude steel; for the time being and as a transitory solution it will be ok to import semi-products to reroll, but this should not be the long-term solution,” Gozzi said. “It is impossible for ADI business in the long run not to have a hot-end part there; it is important to have a hot-end decarbonized, so with Electric Arc Furnaces,” he said.
