On February 2, Italian steelmaker ArcelorMittal Italia announced that it has restarted its blast furnace No. 2 at its Taranto-based plant. The blast furnace had been halted March last year to implement some works that the Court of Taranto had prescribed after a fatal accident which occurred in June 2015. Accordingly, the Taranto plant, formerly known as Ilva, is now operating with three blast furnaces (Nos. 1, 2, and 4) and two hot rolling mills.
However, as previously reported, the company will halt blast furnace No. 4 within the March-April period this year to carry out “extraordinary” maintenance works.
According to the industrial plan by ArcelorMittal and Italian state-owned agency Invitalia, which have joint control of the former Ilva facilities, production should increase from last year's 3.3 million mt to 5 million mt in 2021. The last step of the plan is reaching production of 8 million mt in 2025, also thanks to the revamped blast furnace No. 5 and a new electric arc furnace which alone should contribute 2.5 million mt of production capacity.