A final and official agreement between ArcelorMittal and the Italian government on the future of ArcelorMittal Italia, the unit formerly known as Ilva, has been postponed to Dec. 11, union sources told S&P Global Platts Nov. 30.

The sources added, however, that they still expect the government to take a 50% share in AM Italia, before increasing this to a 60% holding during 2022.

"The postponement is due to the need to better define some financial expectations. The industrial plan is the one [agreed on] March 4, but we must see the completion times taking into account that COVID makes things a bit longer the previously planned,” one union source said.

AM Italia will close this year with production of around 3.3 million-3.2 million mt of crude steel, union sources told Platts.

As the coils market has improved since the end of October, AM Italia is planning to restart a third blast furnace at the former Ilva site in January, with around 2 million mt/year of design capacity. The restarted furnace, BF2, will partially offset the one-week BF4 maintenance outage at the end of this year.

-- Annalisa Villa