Ex Ilva, for now the structure does not change. Mittal remains in the majority, unions critical of the program agreement
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It seemed, until recently, that it should be the novelty, the turning point, the unions and institutions supported it, and instead the governance structure in Acciaierie d’Italia, formerly Ilva, remains as it is for now, with the private Mittal at 62 percent and the public company Invitalia at 38. At the end of the discussions on January 19 with the company, trade unions, local institutions and Confindustria, the Minister of Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, was clear: the date of the reorganization remains in 2024. substance, the possibility of exchange exists, introduced by the decree relating to urgent measures for national strategic sites, n. 2 of 2023 now under consideration in the Senate, but it is not as immediate as the unions and institutions would have liked.
A negative point above all for Fiom Cgil, Uilm and Usb, who focused their protest on the change of governance in the former Ilva, held a first demonstration in Rome on 11 January, when they met parliamentarians and the Environment Commission of the Chamber, called the strike of January 19 in Taranto and on the same day a few hundred workers were brought to Rome in garrison under the Mimit while the Urso summit was underway. But even the Fim Cisl, which also deems it necessary to change the corporate structure, even if it does not indicate it as a priority like the other metalworking acronyms, is critical of the outcome of the summit, above all because it considers the scenario unclear in which, from now on then, the former Ilva will move.
The working capital needed by the company has been restored
According to sources present at the ministerial table, what slowed down Urso, who was the first to speak of rebalancing governance, would have been the fact that if the State were to pass now to 60 per cent of Acciaierie d’Italia, using the billion given on the capital side to Invitalia, then it would have had to take charge, in the corresponding proportional share, of all the rest, including investments. And this would have had a considerable cost, for which, the sources say, even the MEF would have held back. So that the way of shareholder financing has remained. And Urso explained it this way, speaking of «important financing which will also have to serve to create the working capital necessary for the productive relaunch of the site with a formula that allows us at any time, possibly, to transform those finances into shares».
Morselli: let’s get out of financial fragility
For CEO Morselli, «at the beginning of last August, Minister Giorgetti recognized that the company was financially fragile. Thanks to Minister Urso, we have come out of the condition of fragility. We have a six month cash cycle. Six months pass before cashing in and we only have to pay in that while. Now we can access the financial markets. It would take two billion in circulation in an ideal world, but we can do it».
In a month we will know about the program agreement
The novelty that emerges, however, is the program agreement for the Taranto area. Urso will specify its contents in the next meeting at Mimit in a month’s time. It should combine production relaunch, factory recovery and new investments for the Taranto area, with an eye to electric and pre-heated furnaces which are the prospect of the future, given that the president of Acciaierie d’Italia, Franco Bernabè, announced in the summit that for Dri, the iron pre-reduced as an alternative to mineral filler, «the decision on the investment will be made in June». «The plant – he explained – will be divided into two modules, one will supply Dri to Acciaierie d’Italia and the other will serve the domestic market. The construction of the plant will begin in the second semester». Furthermore, added Bernabè, «the Hydra plant will start soon, a model that produces green steel on a small scale». He will carry out «a small production to test the peculiarities associated with the construction of a real plant». Instead, for the part relating to Acciaierie d’Italia, having undertaken the commitments to start, next November, the renovation of blast furnace 5, which has been shut down since 2015, the largest in Europe, invest in the power plant, produce 4 million tons of steel this year and 5 next.
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