L1138 Official Journal of the European Communities 24.4.2001 (Acts whose publication is not obligatory) COMMISSION DECISION of 29 November 2000 on the State aid which Italy is planning to grant to five ECSC steel undertakings (notified under document number C(2000) 3933) (Only the Italian text is authentic) (Text with EEA relevance) (2001/323/ECSC) THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES, (3)  The Commission decision to initiate the procedure was Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, and in particular Article 4(c) thereof, Having regard to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, and in particular Article 62(1)(a) thereof read in conjunc- tion with Protocol 14, Having regard to Commission Decision No 2496/96/ECSC of 18 December 1996 establishing Community rules for State aid to the steel industry (hereinafter referred to as the ‘steel aid code’ (), Having called on interested parties to submit their comments pursuant to the provisions referred to above (3 and having regard to those comments, Whereas: . Procedure (1) By letter dated 27 September 1999, Italy notified the Commission of five plans to grant aid to ECSC undertak- ings in respect of investments in energy conservation made by the latter in the period 1986 to 1994. By letter dated 23 November 1999, received by the Commission on 20 January 2000, Italy submitted further details. (2) By letter dated 13 March 2000, the Commission informed Italy that it had decided to initiate the proce- dure laid down in Article 6(5) of the steel aid code in respect of the abovementioned aid. () O] L 338, 28.12.1996, p. 42. () O] C 148, 27.5.2000, p. 10. published in the Official Journal of the European Communi- ties ). The Commission invited interested parties to submit their comments on the aid. (4 The Commision received comments from the UK Steel Association and from the UK Permanent Representation to the European Union. It forwarded them to Italy for its reaction, a response being received by letter dated 6 September 2000. II. Detailed description of the aid (5)  The aid relates to investments made by five ECSC companies between 1986 and 1994. The investments in the five notified aid projects can be summarised as follows. 5.1. Acciaierie e Ferriere Leali SpA: The investments concern the replacement of an existing oil-fired reheating and normalising furnace with a new natural gas-fired furnace featuring a radiant-roof combustion chamber fitted with highly insulating refractors and heat recovery from the fumes for preheating the combustion air. The total cost amounts to ITL 1,44 billion (EUR 0,745 million) and the proposed aid to ITL 273 million (EUR 0,141 million). The aid intensity is 19 %. The investments were made in 1986 and the company applied for aid in 1992. () See footnote 2.