India’s JSW Steel has acquired the Italian mill Aferpi in Piombino, part of Algeria’s Cevital, Kallanish learns from a trade union source. “… After two and a half months of negotiations handled with the help of president of the Region Enrico Rossi together with the Region’s staff and the ministry, Piombino can finally restart,” Italian Minister of Economic Development Carlo Calenda also announced late on 17 May on Twitter.  

A formal meeting between Cevital’s lawyers and JSW Steel took place in Rome ten days ago  to discuss the final details of the deal. This led to the signing of the final agreement last night. The definitive industrial plan will now be presented for approval to the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (Mise).

The unions are now expecting a meeting with the company which has said that it is willing to share its proposed industrial plan and discuss the projects behind the relaunch of Piombino. “Our negotiating work starts now as we will need to understand the challenges of this re-launch. We are delighted to be able to work with JSW to adopt best practices with the common interest of bringing the mill back to its best performance,” the source says. He adds that JSW should reconfirm employment for Piombino’s 1840 employees and 163 from the logistics department.

According to rumours, as yet unconfirmed by the company, once the industrial plan is approved, JSW will immediately restart the three rolling mills at full capacity and feed them with bloom and billet from JSW steel mills in India. Part of the industrial plan is also the construction of a new hot rolling mill for coil production powered by two electric arc furnaces (see Kallanish 4 May)