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.

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 huge leap after World War II, under the direction of engineer Giovanni Battista Rizzani, inaugurating the first modern Siemens-Martin furnace on February 23 1951. 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.