Ilva to make 400,000 mt of plate in 2019: AM Italy CEO

ArcelorMittal Italy started Ilva’s plate mill in November and is planning to produce 400,000 mt of plate next year, running the mill at 40% capacity, Matthieu Jehl, the CEO of ArcelorMittal (AM) Italy, told S&P Global Platts at the AM Europe Media day in Paris Tuesday.

Part of the plate production will be used for tubemaking, said Jehl. The new owner of Ilva also restarted the hot-rolling mill No. 1 last month and plans to produce 6 million mt of crude steel per year from 2019 using its own slab, material from other AM sites or external suppliers. This will be procured on a quarterly basis.

By 2024, finished steel shipments are planned to increase to 9.5 million mt.

Jehl said that Ilva would primarily focus on the Italian sales market, which he described as “one of the most competitive markets in Europe.”

On the sidelines of the event, Jehl told Platts that selling outside Italy would be subject to other markets’ needs. When asked if Ilva would also target non-European markets such as the Turkish market to which Ilva had previously supplied HRC, he said that would be possible as well.

AM Italy is currently “catching up on the standard of maintenance” of other AM sites, he added, saying “Today’s performances [of Ilva] show a considerable gap to ArcelorMittal,” while noting that the AM Italy mill has the potential to improve its results quickly.

“Ilva’s presence on the Italian market has clearly reduced over last years…we need to restore our reputation,” said Jehl.

Laura Varriale