Metinvest and equipment maker Danieli aim to commission Metinvest’s prospective hot strip mill in Piombino, Tuscany by 2027, President of Tuscany Eugenio Giani said after a meeting in Florence earlier this week with Metinvest-Trametal and Danieli management representatives.

The firms participated this week in two meetings with Tuscany region officials and the Piombino city council. “On the part of Metinvest-Danieli, I saw an entrepreneurial will, combined with great attention to the territory … To start [the project] now, we are missing agreements between the government, the region, other bodies and interested parties … on the concessions that are needed, as well as [agreements] on how the electric arc furnace will be built and how JSW and Metinvest will be able to co-exist without overlapping,” Giani says in a document obtained by Kallanish.

He adds that the project comes under the name of “Digital Green Steel” and the timing of the mill's realisation will be “rather quick”, considering the venture aims for commissioning in 2027.

The new facility will entail an investment of €2 billion ($2.1 billion) and produce 2.7 million tonnes/year of hot rolled coil from the EAF route. Earlier this week, a public assembly was held in Piombino attended by Metinvest and Danieli management, as well as Piombino Mayor Francesco Ferrari, to showcase the future facility to the community.

“The investment by Metinvest and Danieli can be a concrete opportunity to relaunch the steelworks site and, more generally, the local economy, but it is necessary … that the most innovative technologies and measures are adopted to protect the environment, health and economic diversification,” the Piombino city council says in a note.

Metinvest is rumoured to have reached an agreement with the Italian government and Indian steelmaker JSW for the takeover of JSW’s Italian long steel mill in Piombino. In the first week of November, Metinvest chief executive Yuriy Ryzhenkov met Italy’s Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMT) Adolfo Urso in Rome to discuss the takeover. The meeting was attended by Danieli chief executive Gianpietro Benedetti, as well as Ferrari.

The ministry said then that JSW and Metinvest would co-exist in the hub and the project had made a step forward in a positive and “collaborative climate”. JSW would keep and revamp the rail mill that supplies Italy’s national railway operator, Ferrovie dello Stato, while Metinvest and Danieli would build an EAF low-emission steel coil plant (see Kallanish passim).