Udine
SAFAU Udine
The place where the famous ABS was born and also where the last remaining open-hearth furnace in Italy can still be found. At least its fragments at the moment.
The site is abandoned and the last open-hearth furnace in Italy is in critical condition beyond any restoration.
Image photography
By Viktor Macha in 2023.
Plant facts and figures
The plant have an annual capacity of 0 tons.
The following processes are conducted in the plant:
- Steel making
- Rolling mill
This plant produces the following type of products:
- Blooms
Full description
It all began in 1882 when the Viennese engineer Karl Neufeld, owner of an ironworks in Aosta, and Francesco Orter from Udine, owner of an ironworks in Piazza San Cristoforo, founded the Ferriere, employing 750 workers in the early 1900s. Ferriere’s shareholders were largely Austrian, so after the Great War they put the company into liquidation, which was acquired by Acciaierie di Venezia.
Part of the plant then passed in ’42 to Safau (Società per azioni Ferriere e Acciaierie di Udine), which made a hge leap after World War II, under the direction of engineer Giovanni Battista Rizzani, inaugurating on February 23, 1951 the modern Siemens-Martin furnace. The open-hearth furnaces was in operation until August 1975.
In 1988 there was the merger of the two large city steel companies, which formed ABS, or Acciaierie Bertoli Safau. The ABS then established a brand new plant at the outskirts of Udine, today owned by the Danieli Group.