The steel paradox at Ilva: what it means to let the hot end die

The potential consortium of Italian steelmakers ready to take over the cold-rolling facilities of the former Ilva perhaps tells a better story than many official statements about what remains today of Taranto’s once-great steel industry. And, above all, what the market still considers salvageable. On the one hand, there is the hot-rolling area. The decision by the Milan Court of Appeal, which ordered operations to cease within 90 days (with less than 75 days now remaining) and made the resumption of operations conditional upon the complete removal of asbestos and the reduction of fine particulate matter emissions, risks being the final blow to facilities already scarred by years of seizures, a lack of maintenance investment and progressive deterioration. Without an immediate industrial and financial solution, blast furnaces, coking plants and steelworks simply risk shutting down and rusting away in the sun, turning Taranto into a ‘Bagnoli on steroids’, with social consequences that appear to be completely underestimated. 

On the other hand, there is a part of the former Ilva that still holds interest for entrepreneurs. These are the cold-rolling and cold-forming plants, starting with those in Genoa and Novi Ligure: facilities that produce rolled, galvanised and coated steels for the manufacturing industry. It is no coincidence that those showing interest are mainly steelmakers who are Ilva’s customers. No one seems willing to shoulder the risk of the entire operation alone, but by forming a consortium they might have an interest in preserving production capacity and strategic processes for various supply chains. It would, however, be a completely different Ilva. For decades, the group’s industrial ethos has been one of integration: Taranto produced the steel and the northern plants processed it. If the hot-rolling section disappears, that chain is broken. And this is where the most interesting questions arise. What slabs or coils will be used to feed the cold-rolling mills? Steel produced in Italy or imported? From which countries and on what terms? And above all: if the intention is genuinely to secure public funding to make the operation possible – despite the fact that the activities in question are not operating at a loss – what guarantees and concessions will be offered to the state? In short, the Italian consortium could save a significant part of the former Ilva. But its very success risks confirming the failure of the project that, for over sixty years, had justified the Taranto site: producing, in Italy from ore, the steel needed by our industry. The market seems to have already chosen what to keep. Now it is up to the state to decide what to do with the rest.