The elders in Piombino used to encapsulate their lifestyle in simple terms: bread and smoke. Since the late 19th century, the Tuscan city has gravitated around the steelworks adjacent to its port. A proper steel ‘monoculture’, which almost single-handedly supported the livelihood of the local community, it filled the air with dark fumes day in and day out. After years of slow, relentless decline, Piombino’s steel works now brace for an unexpected comeback. 

Metinvest, Ukraine’s largest steel producer and owner of some of Ukraine biggest steel works — including the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, which became famous worldwide during the town’s siege the early days of the war in Ukraine — signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Italian government and local authorities on January 18 to develop a new €2.2bn steel complex in the area. 

The new facility is expected to create 1700 new direct and indirect jobs. This is a far cry from the heydays of Piombino’s steel works, but still forms a much-needed shot in the arm for the local industry. It is possibly a paradigm shift, too, as the electric furnace envisioned by Metinvest promises to deliver its jobs dividend with much less contaminating emissions than were seen in the past. 

“This project will play a key role in Italy’s green transition,” Yuriy Ryzhenkov, CEO of Metinvest, said in a statement. 

The war in Ukraine has crippled Metinvest’s local steel works. The company reported a steel production of 2.9 million tonnes of steel in 2022, down from 9.5 million the year earlier. In the first nine months of 2023, production failed to exceed 1.5 million tonnes. With a capacity of three million tonnes, the facility in Piombino will help Metinvest make up for some of the lost production in Ukraine. 

“Piombino is a city that has a natural vocation for steel production. People won’t oppose the project,” Eugenio Giani, president of Tuscany, tells fDi. 

Rather, local communities will remain cautious until a final decision is made. Piombino’s dismantled steel works areas already went through several failed attempts to regenerate the whole industrial complex. Ominously, in hindsight, it was Russian Severstal that inflicted it the final blow with a failed regeneration scheme that left the whole ordeal bankrupt in 2011. 

“This MoU is a real chance to regenerate the city,” Piombino’s mayor Francesco Ferrari said in a statement. 

The deal will now move forward with a feasibility study. Business minister Adolfo Urso aims for all the parties to be in a position to discuss a final investment decision within four months.

​​Should it go ahead, Metinvest will deliver the final project in partnership with Danieli, the Italian manufacturer of equipment for the production of steel.