The preservation of Vinyls Italia’s (Porto Maghera / Italy) plants has become a matter of top priority, which Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has taken upon himself. The statesman recently received the union representatives from Porto Torres at Rome’s Palazzo Chigi and tried to calm them down by announcing his intention to convene yet another national round table with the participation of Eni.

In addition, the Italian head of state brought another interested party into the fray. So far, Croatia’s largest polymer producer Dioki (Zagreb; www.dioki.hr) has widely been considered the most likely potential buyer. Now, rumor has it that the Mancone Investment Group (Bucharest / Romania) has expressed an interest in the lines as well. However, both the Croatian and the Romanian group are solely interested in the PVC chain. In Dioki’s case, this is hardly surprising – after all the company is currently upgrading its own VCM lines – see Plasteurope.com of 06.08.2010.

The latest deadline to submit offers for the ailing lines expires on 22 October. Union representatives have said that by this date, all available means left to the company will have dried up, meaning that if nothing transpires by then, insolvency becomes increasingly likely. As for the union representatives, they do not believe there can be a solution without Eni, so this Italian saga is likely to end in a tug of war between the government and the 30% state-owned Eni. The latter’s CEO, meanwhile, already pronounced Italy’s chlorine chain dead a while ago.