Furnaces at ex-ILVA steelworks have been shut down

Furnaces at ex-ILVA steelworks have been shut down

(ANSA) - ROME, 06 NOV - The blast furnaces of the former IILVA steelworks in Taranto have been completely shut down, Maurizio Saitta, the General Manager of the Acciaieria d'Italia (AdI) company that owns the plant, told trade unions on Friday. The procedure to shut down the furnaces was started on Tuesday 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. "As of this morning, nothing is running any more," Saitta said during a meeting with unions at the labour minister on the temporary layoff programme for workers. "All the facilities in the hot section have been shut down". The future of the plant and the implementation of a plan to decarbonize it and make it electric, are now highly uncertain along with the jobs of thousands of people who work there or for suppliers. According to media reports, 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. 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...