Sunday, July 31 the Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore has published an interview with Fabio Riva in which the vice chairman of the Riva Group talked about the 'health' of the Italian steel giant, and outlined the company's future moves in the field of investments.
According to the latest estimates, the company could close the 2011 budget with a turnover of about € 10 billion, up 40 percent over the previous year. However, the weight of raw material costs, in turn, increased to a much higher rate (+100% for coal, +50% for minerals), will probably affect results, causing a negative outcome, even though slightly. Quoting the words of Riva: "Unfortunately, we work to pay for raw materials." The weak state of the market does not allow to implement relevant costs into the prices of finished goods. According to the vice president of the European steel producer, the low gross operating margin - which in 2010 did not exceed 1% of revenues and this year will show no improvement - will confirm 2011 as another difficult year.
However - according to the interview - last year the Riva Group has invested € 390 million, and it is imminent the allocation of 160-165 million in order to take over two power plants located within Ilva of Taranto (currently in the hands of Edison); an obvious choice, since in 2012 the feed-in tariffs Cip6 will no longer be applied.
As for the products markets, Riva emphasizes the "bad period" of the Italian automotive sector, adding: "In general, nothing is going well: we had fallen so low that now it's going better than before, but still not well. " Abroad, the Italian steel giant is already present with its products and production facilities; for example, in France and Germany, where it produces 2 million mt of crude steel, with a turnover of around € 1 billion.
Regarding the recent release of the Integrated Environmental Authorization for Ilva of Taranto, Fabio Riva said: "Now I hope that the minister signs it by the end of next week. Anyway, we have never stopped investing in advanced environmental technologies".