Former Ilva alarm after Milan ruling, negotiations at risk

The former Ilva plant in Taranto is increasingly in the balance and even at risk of closure after the Milan court ruling. The Minister of Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, warns: the potential investor and the loan to run the factory may be lost. At the moment, the government and commissioners are evaluating the measure, waiting to understand the moves of the American fund Flacks Group, with whom the sale of the company is being negotiated, and expressing 'concern' over the new problems. Almost certainly, the ruling that obliges the former Ilva to rewrite a series of environmental prescriptions of the AIA - issued by the ministry in August - and to detail developments, methods and implementation timeframes if it wants to avoid the shutdown of the hot area from 24 August will be challenged at the Court of Appeal in Milan. For the judges, in fact, not having provided in the AIA 'a maximum time limit within which the relevant interventions must actually be carried out' means 'that their implementation will be delayed until the expiry of the AIA'. Meanwhile, the measure has already been sent to Flacks and will be discussed at the next meetings with the commissioners.

"We are certainly concerned," commented Enterprise Minister Adolfo Urso. "The commissioners are assessing what impact this may have both on the ongoing negotiations that were being finalised with the US fund Flacks - also because the ruling effectively rewrites the rules of the game - and on the continuity of the plants on which a very tight date is being imposed. Urso also talks about the loan of up to 390 million authorised by the EU: 'The loan that we must provide to ensure continuity of production and adequate employment levels depends on whether a buyer can repay the loan. If the court ruling were to affect the ongoing negotiations to some extent, there would not even be the conditions to disburse the loan'.

"Ilva is closed and Urso has a great deal of responsibility,' attacks Pierpaolo Bombardieri, Uil number 1. 'Why should the Americans come to invest in Italia? And why should there be an Italian investor coming to put money into a plant monitored by the Magistracy, which is intervening in an already decimated territory?"

And there are at least three problems opening up after the ruling. Maintenance work on blast furnace 4, which should last two months, and then flanking the plant with blast furnace 2, which had already restarted last week: revision of the prescriptions challenged by the judges in Milan; continuation of the negotiations with Flacks, first of all clarifying whether or not it remains in the game.

Blast furnace 4 is already at a standstill, but if the planned work is actually to start, it is now under evaluation. The latter intersects with the review of the Aia ordered by the court. According to sources close to the company, it is a question of whether it is still useful to do what has been planned for the blast furnace if the hot area will have to stop in August. "I hope that there will be a positive assessment by the commissioners and that this maintenance can still go ahead," Urso comments.