Acciaierie d’Italia (ADI)’s maintenance programme aims to restore a 4 million tonnes/year production run rate by next March, Italian Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso said during a meeting in Rome last week. He met with local authorities including the Puglia Region, the cities of Taranto and Statte, the Province of Taranto.
The focus of the meeting was the industrial relaunch of the site that may include non-steel production related investment projects.
The minister informed regional and local authorities about the discussions initiated in recent months “with major industrial players that have expressed interest in investing in the Taranto area,” the ministry says in a note obtained by Kallanish.
The initial assessment identified more than 15 potential investment projects – in the sectors of advanced manufacturing, energy, logistics, digital technologies, and agri-industry. Employment impact would be primarily directed at the workforce of the former Ilva and its related supply chain.
“These projects and their employment effects will be further examined with the region and local entities in a dedicated technical working group to be convened shortly,” the ministry adds.
The investments may be located in various areas including portions of the former Ilva plant no longer in use for steel production, including 140 hectares immediately available and 30 requiring remediation, 210 hectares of port authority land under concession and 240 not under concession. Also included are decommissioned or soon-to-be-decommissioned military land amounting to over 350 hectares; as well as 2,000 industrial hectares already available. No timeline for these potential projects was provided.
Urso however reiterated that the decarbonisation process remains a priority. No increase is envisaged in the number of workers placed under redundancy schemes or training programmes. The production continuity of the northern ex-Ilva sites will be ensured exclusively through the supply of coils from the Taranto plant.
According to an informed source, the government is merely buying time, and the long-term plan for the former Ilva site is its permanent closure. Restarting the blast furnaces to reach 4mt of output would increase emissions, a prospect strongly opposed by local authorities, who have consistently pushed for shutting down the Taranto facility.
On the sale process, multiple sources say there is no genuine interest from any buyer willing to invest billions into ADI, particularly at a time when steel consumption in Europe is expected to continue declining.
