An investment train worth more than a billion euros blocked by slowness and bureaucracy.
The great opportunity for industry in Sulcis, in Sardinia, passes through a series of public and private resources which, on paper, exceed one billion euros, accompanied by projects to relaunch idle activities or new production initiatives. Important programs that, too often, have to deal with very long times dictated by bureaucracy, authorizations and changes to be made to projects. We move from the aluminum supply chain to that involving lead and zinc, to continue with the new hyper-renewable initiatives and agricultural experimentation.
The aluminum knot
Eurallumina, the company controlled by the Russian Rusal which has a 300 million euro plan to readjust the Portovesme plant and start production. The program provides for the plant to be fixed from March 2009. That is, when the company decided to stop production due to the high cost of the fuel oil used to keep the plants running. Over time, a series of initiatives and protocols followed, accompanied by as many projects. Some of which were later shelved. This is the case of the one for the construction of a coal-fired plant for the production of steam, and the one for the construction of a steam pipeline connected to the nearby power plant.
With these parentheses closed, the focus is now on gas by resorting to a floating LNG tanker: the FSRU. An employment plan is also being followed for the plant, which today guarantees employment to 230 employees (130 in service and a hundred on layoffs) and which provides for the employment of 363 direct people and related industries made up of contractors and subcontractors of 1,500 employees. The plan also includes the handling of 4 million loads in the port area of Portovesme. The project is still stalled because some steps are missing concerning both the dredging of the port and the signing of the Addendum to the memorandum of understanding, while the workers are still on layoffs.
The Sider Alloys plant is functioning, albeit with reduced numbers compared to what was initially envisaged and with delays dictated by the Covid emergency and postponements in authorizations due to bureaucracy. The Italian-Swiss company that took over the smelter from Alcoa which, also in Portovesme, produces primary aluminum from alumina processing. To get the plants back on track that had stopped since 2012 (when the electrolytic cells were turned off and the factory produced an average of 150,000 tons of primary aluminum for ingots and billets per year), the group is carrying out an intervention plan worth around 150 million euros between public and private resources. About 150 people are already at work within the industrial area, but when fully operational an estimated 400 work units have been estimated.