Steelworks of Italy, will the former Ilva go to the Chinese Baosteel?
After the fire at the former Ilva blast furnace, Baku Steel withdrew from the acquisition process of Accaierie d'Italia: but the difficulties with the Taranto regasification plant also had something to do with it. The Indians of Jindal are no longer interested, so the government considers the Chinese of Baosteel. All the details
The Azerbaijani steel group Baku Steel would no longer be interested in acquiring Acciaierie d'Italia, the company in extraordinary administration that manages the former Ilva in Taranto. According to the reconstruction of L'Espresso , the pretext for the withdrawal of the offer was provided by the fire at blast furnace 1 of the former Ilva, which occurred on 6 May: there were no injuries. The plant was seized by the Taranto prosecutor's office.
THE DAMAGE TO THE EX ILVA BLAST FURNACE COMMENTED BY URSO
In this regard, the Minister of Business Adolfo Urso spoke of a "significant damage which will inevitably have immediate repercussions on employment", with the "concrete" risk of resorting to redundancy payments for thousands of workers. “If there is no functionality”, he added, the negotiations for the sale of Acciaierie d'Italia “will stop and obviously no one will ever bet on the industrial and technological reconversion of what was the largest steel plant in Europe”.
WHY BAKU STEEL WITHDRAWS FROM ACCIAIERIE D'ITALIA
However, according to L'Espresso , the blast furnace fire would not be the main cause of Baku Steel's rethinking of Acciaierie d'Italia, or at least the slowdown of the acquisition operation. It seems that the group has understood the difficulties of installing a floating LNG terminal off the coast of Taranto, one of the main – and most controversial – points of its proposal for the former Ilva. The regasification terminal should be used to supply the steelworks with fuel, to circumvent the problem of high energy prices in our country.
Beyond the local opposition, L'Espresso wrote that "someone in Rome" would be against the possibility that Azerbaijan, through the Taranto terminal, increases its influence on the national energy sector: the country is already one of our main suppliers of natural gas (which crosses the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, or TAP) and also of crude oil, as well as being in good political and economic relations with Russia.
Giorgia Meloni's government, moreover, is considering increasing imports of liquefied gas from the United States to rebalance the trade balance : Italy currently has a trade surplus of around 40 billion euros with America.
In summary, considering both the difficulties on the regasification terminal and the fire at the blast furnace, Baku Steel would have withdrawn from the acquisition agreement and would be leveraging the seizure of the plant to scuttle the agreement.
AND JINDAL?
The Indian steel company Jindal Steel also appears to have left the scene, having also submitted an offer for Acciaierie d'Italia and which, in the Meloni government's plans, could have had a 10 percent share , with Baku Steel still in control.
Jindal Steel, however, has moved on to another European steelworks – that of Vitkovice Steel in Kosice, Slovakia: it has acquired it entirely – and therefore would no longer be interested in the Italian site.
WILL ACCIAIERIE D'ITALIA GO TO CHINA?
According to L'Espresso , the government and the commissioners of Acciaierie d'Italia "are trying to contact the Chinese giant Baosteel which, however, could take over but without the financial coverage of the Azeris": therefore a less rich proposal than those presented by Baku Steel (around 1.1 billion euros) and Jindal Steel (around 600 million). Acciaierie d'Italia had also received an offer from the US investment fund Bedrock Industries of 500 million (only for the valorisation of the warehouse: the cash part equal to zero).
Delivering a critical asset such as the Acciaierie d'Italia plants to Baosteel, therefore to China, could however be problematic, also in light of the British Steel-Jingye case in the United Kingdom , which pushed the British government to intervene to avoid closure: British Steel manages the last two blast furnaces still active in the United Kingdom.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/acciaierie-italia-ex-ilva-baosteel/ on Tue, 13 May 2025 13:45:42 +0000.