The Liberty Steel plant in Galati has started the supply process, and we have received a commitment from the company that the Blast Furnace No. 5 will be restarted within two to three weeks, announced Minister of Economy, Digitisation, Entrepreneurship and Tourism, Bogdan Ivan, during a "Government Hour" debate in the Senate on Wednesday.
"The situation in Galati is extremely important. I want to tell you that three weeks ago, the Government adopted a Memorandum that granted an extension of a working capital loan from Exim Bank, worth 350 million euros, aimed exclusively at bringing raw materials - from coke to other raw materials - to restart the blast furnace in Galati. At the moment, the supply process has begun because we are talking about a mechanism that requires advance payments for all suppliers of these materials, some of which come from Australia. They have made the advance payments. Currently, the commitment from this company is that the furnace will be restarted in two, at most three weeks," said Ivan.
He also mentioned that negotiations have started at the European Commission level to find a relaxation mechanism for "everything related to the steel industry in Romania."
"What we have done at the decision-making and government level, apart from providing this lifeline to them, we have also taken into account negotiations with the European Commission that I, along with those from the company, carried out to find a relaxation mechanism for the entire steel industry in Romania. And when I say this, I am referring to steel (...)," said the minister of Economy.
According to him, the Green Industrial Deal has been renegotiated, and an agreement has been reached to conduct an analysis on the impact of extending the free carbon certificate mechanism within the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which is set to be gradually phased out starting in 2026.
Additionally, a problem for the industry is the tariffs imposed by the USA on steel and aluminum, pointed out the head of the Ministry of Economy.
The Liberty Steel plant entered into an agreement with creditors due to the high prices of gas and energy, t
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