Ex-ILVA furnace kept open

(ANSA) - Taranto, January 7 - One of the main blast furnaces at the former ILVA steelworks in Taranto was kept open after a court upheld an appeal from the firm's commissioners on Tuesday.
    Blast furnace 2 (AFO2) will keep operating after the court of re-examination quashed an early ruling that rejected a suit to keep it going.
    The commissioners voiced "great satisfaction" at the ruling.
    They said they had always had faith in justice.
    AFO2 was first sequestered in June 2015 after an accident killed 35-year-old worker Alessandro Morricella, who was hit by a stream of molten iron. The former ILVA works at Taranto, Europe's largest, recently returned to extraordinary administration after ArcelorMittal tried to get out of a deal to run it.
    The Franco-Indian steel group, the world's biggest, cited the lifting of a 'penal shield' protecting buyers from legal action over an environmental clean-up at the highly polluting plant.
    Emissions from the Taranto works have been linked to higher than usual rates of some forms of cancer among the Puglia city's population, especially children.
    The government says it is determined to keep Taranto, and other plants near Genoa, running to avert a devastating blow to the national economy.
    The possibility of State intervention has been aired, despite the European Union's strict rules against State aid for industry.