Shutdown of furnaces at ex-ILVA steelworks begins

Shutdown of furnaces at ex-ILVA steelworks begins

(ANSA) - ROME, 03 NOV - Operations to shut down the blast furnaces of the former Ilva steelworks in Taranto began on Tuesday, the company told trade unions. The shutdown comes after the supreme Court of Cassation last week rejected appeals from the government-appointed administrators of the plant and AdI S.p.A., the company that owns it, against the closure of the facility's hot area. The shutdown was ordered in July by a Milan court, which upheld a motion presented on health grounds by members of a parents' association and a child with a rare genetic mutation. It said that activity at the hot area must stop within three months unless all the asbestos on the site is removed and measures to bring particulate emissions within safe limits are taken. The plant and the implementation of a plan to decarbonize it and make it electric, is now highly uncertain along with the jobs of thousands of people who work there or for suppliers. According to several media reports on Tuesday, a consortium of Italian companies led by steel federation Federacciai that had expressed an expression of interest in the plant has decided not to present a bid for its cold-rolled production area. "A decision has not yet been made" Federacciai President Antonio Gozzi said on Tuesday in relation to the reports. "When the decision is made, we will announce it". The deadline for submitting binding bids is November 8. Indian group Jindal, Czech group CE industries, and US-based private investment group Flacks have expressed interest in buying the plant. Premier Giorgia Meloni's government has not ruled out State involvement, given the strategic importance of steel. The Taranto factory, once Europe's biggest steelworks, has been dogged by economic problems in recent years and linked to high cancer rates in the Puglia port city. Last week prosecutors requested former AdI President and CEO Lucia Morselli and former plant director Alessandro Labile be put under house arrest over potentially cancer-causing emissions from the factory in the 2022-23 period along with Francesco Astorri, the director of environmental agency Ispra for checks on strategic facilities. ADI was put into State-controlled administration early in 2024 after ArcelorMittal's ownership of the group ended acrimoniously. (ANSA). Read article...