Italy has renewed its commitment to steelmaking at Taranto, with electric furnaces intended to replace the coal-based route. After the rejection by the Milan Court of Appeal of the Acciaierie d'Italia's request to suspend the order stopping Taranto's hot area, due to begin on 16 September so that production could stop by 28 October At the government–union meeting on 27 October, however, the proposed conversion still lacked a final industrial and financing plan, while the future of the existing hot area remained before the Court of Cassation. For the group's customers, the immediate concern is how much steel can reach its rolling and finishing lines during that wait.
Alfredo Mantovano, the undersecretary chairing the meeting, said financial resources were available, now and prospectively, to support decarbonisation. He also acknowledged that the outcome of the sale and the court proceedings prevented the government from presenting a precise conversion timetable. The binding-offer deadline is 8 November; an accepted buyer, financed investment and production restart would require subsequent decisions.
Keeping the hot area warm consumes cash
The emergency measure adopted in October allows the administrators to keep the melting-area installations heated to avoid irreversible damage. That authorisation lasts until publication of the reasons for the Cassation ruling, with an outer limit of 15 December 2026. Emissions-monitoring obligations continue even without production. The measure preserves the possibility of using the equipment again; it does not establish that the furnaces are producing saleable steel.
Rai reported on 25 October that the hot area had not been fully shut down and was being kept warm with purchased gas while production was at zero. Heating therefore creates an operating expense without the corresponding steel revenue. A longer holding period can preserve equipment for a future owner while reducing the cash available for maintenance and material purchases elsewhere in the group.
Taranto's steel feeds operations in the north
Taranto's integrated route produces crude steel, casts it and rolls flat products. The company's published plant descriptions identify hot-rolled coils from Taranto, shipped through Genoa, as feedstock for Novi Ligure's cold-rolling and coating operations. Genoa also serves as a logistics and processing centre, with galvanising and packaging-steel production. Its continued operation consequently depends on material arriving at the right stage of processing, even if its own finishing equipment remains usable.
Replacing Taranto's internally produced steel can involve different purchases. An imported slab still needs hot rolling before it becomes coil, whereas purchased hot-rolled coil can supply downstream cold processing. The two routes retain different operations inside the group and incur different conversion and transport costs. Buying coil may sustain a northern finishing line without restoring Taranto's primary steelmaking or its hot-rolling activity.
Additional finishing orders can provide work and revenue only when the necessary feedstock can be financed and delivered. In its 27 October statement, Fiom said the administrators lacked sufficient resources for downstream processing and maintenance.
A sale offer must cover the period before new furnaces
The shared meeting record, as reported on 28 October, envisages considering public participation alongside continuity across the group's sites. A state investment could change who finances the conversion and bears the operating losses during construction, but the meeting did not settle the size or terms of any participation.
For a prospective owner, the court outcome affects which existing installations can form part of the operating business. The investment also has to support the company during conversion, when maintenance, wages and external feedstock may require cash before replacement capacity earns revenue. A favourable ruling would resolve part of the legal uncertainty while leaving those funding requirements in place.
The electric-furnace route changes the steelmaking inputs as well. Scrap and direct-reduced iron replace much of the ore-and-coke chain, while electricity becomes central to melting costs. Flat products with tight chemistry requirements can require a combination of suitable scrap and primary iron units, so the future cost of Taranto's coils would depend on the metallic charge and power supply chosen for the new plant. The meeting did not establish that final configuration or a commissioning schedule.
An extended interruption would also make the future plant compete to recover orders already placed with alternative mills. Maintaining the group's finishing relationships through externally sourced coil could retain those customers, although part of the steelmaking margin would accrue to the external supplier. If those customers switch mills during the interruption, replacement furnaces would enter a market in which some of Taranto's previous orders are already supplied elsewhere.
