Italy’s Court of Cassation rejected the appeals by Acciaierie d’Italia and Ilva against the shutdown of Taranto’s hot area on 29 October 2026. The Milan Court of Appeal’s order remains in force, affecting the coke ovens, blast furnaces and steelmaking operations at the centre of the integrated plant.
Primary steel production had already stopped. The ruling prolongs the uncertainty over when Taranto could supply steel again, while publication of the judgment’s reasons ends the temporary permission to keep the melting-area installations heated. Northern finishing plants can obtain coil from other mills, but sustaining that business would require cash for external purchases while the group finances remediation and any replacement production route.
Heating permission ends before the December limit
The emergency decree that took effect on 17 October allowed the administrators to keep the melting-area installations heated to avoid irreparable damage. Permission lasted until publication of the Cassation judgment’s reasons, with an outer limit of 15 December. Publication on 29 October triggers the earlier endpoint, so the December date provides no further period under that provision.
The equipment still has to be shut down through a technical sequence. ANSA reports that the administrators must determine the steps and timing, so publication does not mean that every furnace had already cooled that day. The decree’s and the updated shutdown report distinguish the legal endpoint from that physical process.
According to the published accounts of the judgment, the remaining asbestos in the blast furnaces’ hot-blast stoves independently justified upholding the suspension. Once that ground stood, the challenges concerning fine-particle emissions could not change the outcome. Published legal analysis describes resumption as conditional on asbestos removal and safe dust-emission conditions; the decision therefore leaves substantial remediation obligations before any restart of the suspended operations.
Northern finishing plants still need coil
Taranto’s integrated route supplied hot-rolled coil to the group’s northern processing operations. Acciaierie d’Italia’s plant descriptions identify Genoa as a port and processing hub, with Taranto coil continuing by rail or road to Novi Ligure for cold rolling and coating. Those lines can add value to purchased steel even while Taranto’s primary production is suspended.
Purchased hot-rolled coil could sustain some finishing work directly. Slab would first need an available, lawfully operable hot-strip mill to turn it into coil, retaining the hot-rolling work inside the group. Buying finished hot-rolled coil transfers that work and its revenue to another mill, leaving the northern plants to earn their margin from cold rolling, coating and other finishing operations.
External coil purchases can also increase the cash tied up in production, depending on supplier credit and customer payment terms. The group would have to recover the purchase price, transport and finishing costs through its sales. If replacement coil becomes more expensive before existing customer prices can adjust, the remaining processing margin would narrow even where the lines continue operating.
Conversion also requires financing the intervening years
At the government–union meeting on 27 October, the proposed move to electric furnaces still lacked a final industrial and financing plan and a precise conversion timetable. The government’s response on 29 October acknowledged the ruling and reaffirmed its commitment, without announcing a new operating derogation or a replacement production schedule.
A prospective owner would have to fund maintenance, remediation and the remaining operations during construction, when the suspended integrated route cannot generate steelmaking revenue. The amount required to keep the business supplied through that interval would sit alongside investment in replacement furnaces. The 27 October account of the government–union discussions leaves that financing and construction schedule unresolved.
Customers supplied by other mills during the interruption may retain those relationships after Taranto installs replacement capacity. Keeping northern finishing lines supplied could preserve part of the group’s customer business in the meantime, while leaving the steelmaking revenue with the mills providing the replacement coil.
