All blast furnaces (BFs) at flat steel producer Acciaierie d’Italia (ADI) could face closure in July, pending an anticipated ruling by the Italian authorities, Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso told trade unions on 27 June.
The statement came just one month after Urso outlined a two-step plan to relaunch ADI.
The Extraordinary Commissioners of ADI said that the schedule of the mill’s restart plan needs to be reviewed due to technical issues, the steelmaker said on 26 June.
“After years of complaints about the disastrous state of the plants and the failure to renew the environmental authorization, which expired two years ago and was subsequently extended, Minister Urso told us that without a new authorization and without a program agreement in July, the Milan court might decide to shut down ex-Ilva [currently known as ADI],” Italian trade unions UILM and UIL said in their joint statement dated 27 June.
The unions have called for a new industrial plan to resume ADI operations and to protect jobs.
“There is an issue we cannot ignore: there is a pending sentence of the Court of Milan which, if political decisions are not taken on the interinstitutional level, the environmental authorization issue will decide the fate of the plant,” the FIM-CISL trade union said. “The environmental authorization – which takes into account the environmental impacts – requires replacement [of BFs] with [direct-reduced iron] DRI modules fuelled by gas. To obtain this production cycle, it is essential to manage the gas supply through a [new] regasification hub in the port of Taranto.”
An Azerbaijani consortium led by Baku Steel – selected as the preferred bidder for ADI’s assets in March, and market sources said that the company was planning to use liquid gas to power the plant.
Issues with the restart of BF No. 2 has a major impact on the relaunch plans. When the furnace had to be stopped it was loaded with a large volume of pig iron and due to extreme temperature the BF could not be emptied at the time. The pig iron removal process started in December last year and ended in March 2025.
Due to complex works following the stoppage, additional technical issues at BF No. 2 remained unnoticed and which caused the initial emergency equipment shutdown. As the restart of the furnace could pose a threat to both workers’ safety and other operations at the mill, the decision was made not to resume operation at BF No. 2, while the mill made efforts to arrange a safe relaunch of the equipment.
In May this year, BF No. 1 had to be closed due to technical issues, and the restart timeline remains unclear, the mill said.
Local authorities seized BF No. 1 in early May following a fire and explosion at ADI.
ADI’s only operating furnace – BF No.4 was scheduled for relining that will take 2-3 months. The mill has four more furnaces which are currently not producing.
