Acciaierie d’Italia (ADI), the joint venture between ArcelorMittal and state company Invitalia, has sold 2.5 million tonnes of steel, and has 1 million tonnes of steel in stock, including raw materials and finished products. In 2023, ADI produced about 3 million tonnes of crude steel, Acciaierie d’Italia’s ceo Lucia Morselli said in a televised speech at the Senate seen by Kallanish.
Morselli did not specify the period in which the 2.5mt of sales was secured or the period in which the sales are to be delivered, but did say that this number was “as orders.”
The true debt of Acciaierie d’Italia is about €700 million ($749m), Morselli states. In total ADI has €3.1 billion debt. “This debt is mostly intercompany, towards the holding company, of about €1 billion. Then there is about €1 billion that we should pay in case we decide to buy the equipment,” Morselli adds. The equipment of the Taranto steelworks belongs to the Ilva special administration. In May this year, the lease ADI is paying to use the equipment will expire, Kallanish notes. Morselli adds that roughly half of the €700m is outstanding debt.
The company is not in a dramatic situation and continues to produce and pay salaries, he says. But the absence of credit lines and liquidity, the Covid economic crisis, and the increase in energy costs have had a strong impact on productivity. Gas costs rose from €250m to €1.4 billion last year, which meant the shareholders had to help pay the energy bills, Morselli notes. This month a tribunal in Milan rejected ArcelorMittal’s appeal to block its state-owned joint venture partner in ADI, Ivitalia, from requesting the commencement of a special administration for the steelmaker. ArcelorMittal submitted an appeal which revealed that ADI had accumulated debt of €3.1 billion as of 30 November 2023. Trade unions have warned several times that the hot-end area is being idled and have lamented the lack of safety at the Taranto steelworks. ADI is rumoured to be idling blast furnace No. 2 at Taranto and is producing using only BF No. 4 (see Kallanish passim).
Natalia Capra France
