The huge sum paid by the Riva family to the Ilva commissioners to settle the Taranto dispute in a settlement and the offers made to take over the activities of the most important iron and steel pole in the country remove the specter of the closure of the site after very tough years of proprietary uncertainties, and of questionable initiatives by the Judiciary combined with the fluctuating position assumed several times by local and regional politics, yesterday often supine then, finally, very intransigent and unable to pander to the road for a new season of recovery and industrial relaunch.
The offers made by two Groups that are key players in the global steel industry ensure a positive outcome made up of investments and international synergies, even if the two competitors start from very different realities and with very different industrial strategies.
On the one hand, the (Indian-English) colossus of Lakshmi Mittal in alliance with the Marcegaglia family of Mantua proposes a solution for Taranto that takes into account, in the first place, the articulation and current location of its European interests. The Luxembourg-based Acelor Mittal has been the number one in Europe for some decades with plants located throughout the continent and with steel production both with the integral cycle and with the electric furnace capable of supporting the entire supply chain of flat products, pipes and long mercantile. A European colossus which together with Indian interests make Mittal the second world producer after the Chinese. The Marcegaglia family supports him as a major transformer and user of steel and therefore a guaranteed outlet for a large part of Taranto's production. On the other hand, the financial statements of Gazoldo's company are no longer as brilliant as they used to be, but Emma Marcegaglia can ensure the consortium political-trade union connections of no small importance.
On the opposite side, the Indian Jindal has found in Giovanni Arvedi the Italian partner capable of supporting him in the difficult match. Jsn Steel has no plants in Europe and therefore Taranto would represent the central and strategic player for the large Delhi group. Furthermore, Leonardo Del Vecchio and the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti would join Acciaitalia. An arc of entrepreneurial and financial forces capable of guaranteeing the governance of the large iron and steel center.
If for Mittal the remediation could involve the closure of a blast furnace and a substantial drop in production capacity, for the Jindal consortium the new technology that Arvedi has tested and implemented in Cremona could represent a significant ecological and environmental contribution in Taranto without affect the production capacity of the site. Producing coils and strips partly from an electric furnace would eliminate significant amounts of coal, ore dust and CO2 emissions. The short-term perspective of the use of natural gas (by now the pipeline is on the Apulian shore) to accelerate the smelting processes certainly plays more in favor of Arvedi-Jindal than in Mittal-Marcegalia.
At this point the cash offer will be neither decisive nor decisive.
