Italian metalworkers strike over ADI's future; government intervenes

The tense situation at the Acciaierie d'Italia, formerly ILVA, steelworks, has reached a new peak as unions representing all Italian metalworkers launched an open-ended strike against it, demanding solutions to the difficulties faced by Italy's second-largest steel company, once Europe's largest steelmaker.

According to union sources, the strike and associated blockades are intended to force a renegotiation of ADI's strategy. The strike is taking place in Taranto, southern Italy, where the company's core operations and hot-end facilities are located and with strikers blocking internal roads and rail lines, and in Genoa, northern Italy, where rerolling sites are situated, with attempts there to disrupt airport and highway traffic.

A key union demand is to halt the planned "short-cycle scheme." According to this plan, reviewed by Platts, part of S&P Global Energy, the company intends to shut down coke batteries 7, 8, 9 and 12 from Jan. 1. From the second half of January, blast furnace No. 4, the only blast furnace now operational, would operate in rotation with blast furnace No. 2. Unions warn that such measures would constitute a de facto closure with irreversible consequences for production capacity and employment.

The 2 million metric ton/year blast furnace No. 4 was restarted Dec. 3 to produce at reduced levels after it was halted Dec. 2, union sources told Platts.

As the standoff between ADI and the unions intensifies, Italian Industry Minister Adolfo Urso has convened meetings with regional and local authorities in the coming days to reopen dialogue and restore stability. In media comments Dec. 3, Urso delivered an unusually forceful defense of the government's stewardship of ADI.

He rejected accusations of a concealed shutdown plan, insisting that "there is no closure plan — on the contrary," and described a program of extraordinary maintenance aimed at delivering "by March" fully functional and safe plants with at least 4 million mt of capacity. Urso framed the interventions as unavoidable, citing what he called the "total abandonment and decay" inherited from ArcelorMittal — a legacy he quantified at Eur5 billion in damages that the government is preparingto claim.

Urso emphasized that operations in Genoa and Novi Ligure will continue with no layoffs and full wage coverage during the maintenance phase, and that the temporary reduction of coil flows from Taranto reflects only ongoing revamping works and the long-running judicial seizure of blast furnace No. 1.

The industrial plan at the heart of the ongoing international tender "has not changed," he stressed, reaffirming the binding shift to decarbonized production and the pursuit of stable energy supplies, including exploration of a land-based gas solution after local opposition blocked a regasification vessel needed for the receipt of LNG. He reiterated that the government remains ready, if bidders request it, to consider the entry of a public partner within EU rules to guarantee continuity and the decarbonization pathway.

Platts assessed domestic hot-rolled coil in Northern Europe at Eur610/mt ex-works Ruhr on Dec. 3 and in Southern Europe at Eur595/mt ex-works Italy, both stable day over day.

ADI declined to comment further when reached by Platts.