Ilva moves away from private individuals and closer to the state. What doesn't add up

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“If we don’t reach an agreement by July 10, Ilva will close definitively at the end of the month,” said Minister Adolfo Urso . Why? On that date, the conference of services at the Ministry of the Environment is called to issue the environmental authorization that Ilva plants need to remain active. The authorization expired in 2023, and concerns the current blast furnaces. But the government has tied it to an agreement with Michele Emiliano on a hypothetical and futuristic plan to replace the blast furnaces with electric furnaces. And to be realized, the hydrogen path having been set aside with the latest decree, it needs a lot, a lot of gas. One wonders how much it will cost and who will pay for it, considering that today Ilva (despite running on coal, and recycling gas produced by the blast furnaces) already has disputes and debts amounting to millions with Snam and Eni.

The government's plan also has another limitation: who will build it and who will pay for it? Last September, the tender for the sale of Ilva was closed, which the government forced into a second extraordinary administration thanks to endless bridging loans. In March, Mimit announced that Baku Steel had won the Ilva tender. Under the government's guidance, the blast furnaces have collapsed one after the other, so much so that today they are all turned off. According to the plan, they should remain standing until 2039, being replaced on a progressive basis by new electric furnaces. In Piombino, Jindal hasn't built a single one since 2016. 6 billion are needed, and neither a private individual nor the state is providing them. “I – said today the mayor of Taranto Piero Bitetti – do not know of a new tender. The old tender includes two electric furnaces. I have heard of 6 million tons of production, so it cannot be two furnaces. You know that an electric furnace cannot produce more than 2 million tons, so it should be at least three”. On Ilva, the judiciary has done everything to hinder investments. The challenge for politics, in the coming days, will be to succeed in doing the opposite. It will not be easy. Nationalizations in sight? Who knows.

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