Croatia: Knauf Insulation has commissioned a new €120m, 60,000t/yr-capacity electric melting line for stone wool production at its Novi Marof insulation plant. The line is equipped with a submerged arc furnace and is capable of using up to 50% recycled raw material.
Technical director Leon Bustin said "This will add a selection of lower-embodied-carbon rock mineral wool products available to our customers, for applications such as flat roofs and sandwich panel boards."
Hungary: Masterplast recorded sales of €101m in the first half of 2026, up by 53% year-on-year. The producer partly attributed the growth to a 17% increase in sales of insulation. In Hungary, turnover more than doubled to €53.2m. The group turned a profit after tax of €5.2m, up from a loss of €4.6m in the first half of 2025.
The producer noted that existing inventories and a broad raw material supplier base protected its profitability against raw material price rises driven by the on-going Iran war.
Tajikistan: An unspecified private company has produced its first batch of stone wool insulation at a newly-built plant in Tursunzoda, Central Government District. The plant uses locally-sourced basalt from the nearby Qaratogh Gorge mine as raw material. Its inauguration will coincide with the 35th anniversary of Tajik independence on 9 September 2026. Asia-Plus Daily News has reported that the plant is the first of its kind in Tajikistan.
Tajikistan more than doubled its second-half imports of stone wool in 2025, to 2500t, worth US$2m. China supplied 1700t (68%), while Kazakhstan supplied 515t (21%). Smaller volumes came from Belarus, Iran, Lithuania, Türkiye and the UAE.
Spain: Rockwool Peninsular plans to invest €60m to decarbonise production at its Caparroso stone wool insulation plant in Navarre by 2028. The upgrade centres on a €48.8m replacement of the plant's furnace with electric burners. It will receive €18m of Spanish government Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation funding. The project will reduce the plant's CO₂ emissions by 74%, to 13,300t CO₂-equivalent/yr. It also includes a hybrid wind and solar power plant expansion to generate 24GWh/yr for use at the plant. The Navarre government designated the project of ‘chartered region interest’ on 29 July 2026, approximately halving administrative procedural timeframes.
