[Business Travelogue] Rockwool with Stone Wool in Pićan Overcame Protests and Unfulfilled Promises of Sanader and Jakovčić

Every day, about a hundred trucks from Rockwool Adriatica transport tons and tons of stone wool. This factory of insulation material has literally changed everything in the municipality of Pićan – from the budget to the landscape. When representatives of the Danish company first came to Istria, they found only a bare meadow, below Učka, 'in the middle of nowhere', where there used to be coal mines and a closed ceramic tile factory. Here, at the 'source of Raša', two streams merge into a small river, which flows 23 kilometers  southeast into the sea in the Raška bay. Rockwool purchased about 50 hectares of land, and on about 12 hectares, a factory emerged, one of the largest greenfield investments in Croatia, into which more than 140 million euros have been invested.

Pićan was the site of a long-lasting ecological campaign by local associations, which protested against the new factory from 2008 to 2012. Of course, there is no impeccably clean industry. However, after years of efforts and negotiations led by the persistent Anđelka Toto Ormuž from Rockwool’s side, and after continuous improvements in the production process and the installation of state-of-the-art purifiers, an agreement was reached with the local community.

The protests ceased to mutual satisfaction: the factory operates smoothly, last year it paid the municipality 2.9 million kuna in utility fees, and for this year, a 30 percent increase has been announced, to about 3.9 million kuna, which is 30 percent of the planned revenue of the municipal budget.

At Rockwool, they emphasize that they also invest in the local community. Among other things, they participated in the renovation of the kindergarten and increasing its capacity, which had been insufficient due to the increasing number of children in the municipality because of young people moving in or staying due to good living conditions.

– Rockwool is not just a generator of economic growth, but also a magnet for young people – says the factory director Aleks Fonović. 

The factory employs 174 people in the plant, but has outsourced supporting activities, including transport and briquette production in a nearby factory. Thus, from Rockwool, which has about 550 million kuna revenuea, more than 450 people live. For comparison, all other companies registered in the municipality employ about 400 people and have revenues of about 465 million kuna. 

– There is no healthy economy without production; industry is the driver of economic activity. We cannot rely solely on tourism; many have lived in a tourist illusion for the last 15 years, until the pandemic. We are not as sensitive a sector as tourism; while tourism was declining, we were growing. We are export-oriented, and our stone wool was exported even during the strictest lockdown  – says Fonović, opening up:

– Every tourist who waits a bit in line at the border is provided with a bottle of water, while our truck drivers waited longer at the border without media attention and without complimentary bottles of water.

We learn that the raw material, stone, is brought to Pićan from the Radlovac quarry near Orahovica. We naively ask why the plant is in Istria and not in Slavonia. The answer is simple:

The weight of one truckload of stone is approximately equal to the weight of three trucks of stone wool. And since Italy is the main export market, everything is clear. After melting the stone at temperatures above 2000 degrees, they even compress the stone wool to 30 percent of its original volume, thus increasing the amount that fits in one truck. Fonović explains that about 100 trucks enter and exit the factory daily. Rockwool is one of the largest Croatian exporters to Italy and was among the top three last year, receiving the Golden Key as the largest exporter to Romania. Since more than 90 percent of production is exported to 16 countries, primarily to Italy, the choice of this location is logical.

Rockwool had a factory in Sardinia, but due to rising energy costs and the location, production on the island became too expensive. A location was sought for the growing market. At that time, both the Croatian national and local authorities, led by then Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Istrian County Prefect Ivan Jakovčić, lobbied for this location, which has the advantage of proximity to the key Italian market, the countries of the former Yugoslavia, as well as Austria, Bulgaria, and Romania, with market potential extending all the way to Turkey.

Croatian politicians did not promise protests at that time, but benefits.

Rockwool was, in fact, interested in building 400 meters of track to the existing railway towards the Bršica port, which operates as part of the Port of Rijeka. There, it is primarily a livestock and timber port: livestock is transshipped from Hungary to Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel… and logs are exported to Italy and Spain (which then return as imported furniture). If the railway branch to the port, which last saw a train 20 years ago, were to be restored, allowing for container acceptance in Bršica, it would benefit both Rockwool and the community and contribute to ambitious decarbonization goals:

–  One train can replace 50 trucks and could shorten and reduce the cost of transporting stone to the factory and stone wool to destinations from Trieste to Bari and Brindisi – they explained at Rockwool and received promises.  Building four kilometers of road Ivšišće – Kloštar, which would shorten the route for trucks by eight kilometers to the factory and avoid passing through populated areas as they do now, would not be a problem…

Today, there are neither Sanader nor Jakovčić in politics. Therefore, at the end of last year, the Istrian County wrote to Andrej Plenković and his ministers about the ‘Istrian lambda’, or the revitalization of the railway network in Istria, where the ‘Rockwool’ section is located. However, there is still no railway in sight, nor container ports or roads. Only promises remain. Fortunately, production remains, which – they emphasize at Rockwool – has never been halted for ecological reasons. And as for business, despite everything, it is not doing poorly, on the contrary!

You can read the complete report on the Istrian business scene in the new Lider – in digital or printed edition.

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