Acciaierie d’Italia, the joint venture between ArcelorMittal and state-owned Invitalia, has restarted blast furnace no. 1 and 4 at its Taranto steelworks after a stoppage last week due to maintenance works, a company source confirms.
The steelmaker will produce 6 million tonnes of steel in 2022, and expects to reach 4.4mt this year. Acciaierie d’Italia restarted blast furnace no.4 at Taranto in June, after restarting no.2 in February. In June the Taranto plant resumed production with three blast furnaces (BF no.1, 2 and 4). Meltshop no.1 and BF no.4 were idled in March for maintenance (see Kallanish passim).
The Italian coils sector is closely monitoring the ramp-up of Taranto’s production. The steelmaker’s recent judiciary turmoil, global pandemic, frequent production stoppages and production slowdown have contributed to the country’s short supply of hot-rolled coils. The current HRC tightness is easing in Italy as more imported material has been purchased over the past months. HRC prices have fallen compared to the beginning of September, reaching €900-930/t ($1,040-1,074/t) base ex-works for service centre quality material.
Natalia Capra France
