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more importantly, it saves time for our
trucks that are on the road 24/7 col-
lecting materials.’

FRONTRUNNER POSITION
Steel Impex claims to be at the fore-
front of Serbia’s recycling scene.
Having started in 2008 on the remains
of a former state-owned yard, the
company today processes more than
100 000 tonnes of ferrous scrap per
year. Ten years on, according to
Muškinja, Steel Impex controls 40% of
Serbia’s total steel scrap flows.
Steel Impex’s head office is in the north
of the country, near Novi Sad, on the
banks of the River Danube, where it
also operates a second facility and col-
lection/transfer centre. Although this
yard is growing and processing ever-
more scrap year-on-year, Kraljevo is the
main facility, handling the lion’s share
(more than 60 000 tonnes in 2019) of
the total ferrous scrap input. ‘It is here
that we have most of our heavy equip-
ment, including a big Lindemann
shredder and a shear,’ explains
Muškinja while guiding me around the
60 000 m² yard and facility.

BUY LOW, SELL HIGH
This morning, the expansive site looks
clean and relatively empty. There are
just two piles of ferrous scrap measur-
ing 15 metres wide and ten metres
high. That’s the lot. ‘You should have
seen this place three weeks ago, it
was the complete opposite,’ says
Muškinja. ‘We were loaded and there
was scrap everywhere: at least 6 000

tonnes, which we were lucky to sell at
a good pre-agreed price at a time
when markets were already collapsing.
Now we have space to build up the
scrap stocks again, which we buy low
and will hopefully sell high by the time
demand grows and markets climb
back up.’

DEMOLITION AND ELV SCRAP
PARADISE
Steel Impex sources materials from all
over Serbia. The Kraljevo site collects
from the central and western parts of
the country, mainly ferrous but also
some non-ferrous (200 tonnes per year
to end users in Germany) and other
commodities including e-scrap, tyres
and a fast-growing amount of plastics.
The 4 800 m² facility in Novi Sad col-
lects and sorts steel scrap (more than
30 000 tonnes in 2018) from the
Vojvodina area, Serbia’s northern
region and the country’s economic
heartland which includes the greater
Belgrade area with a population close
to two million.
Much of the ferrous materials are col-
lected from demolition works at
industrial sites across the country. But
a scrap source offering huge potential
is the thousands of end-of-life vehicles
waiting to be scrapped. Driving the
country’s secondary roads, you pass
countless hundreds of wrecked car
sites. ‘Sooner or later these vehicles

need to be scrapped,’ Muškinja
agrees. ‘Obviously, we would be more
than happy to take on this task.’

SUPPLYING STEEL MILLS AT
HOME AND ABROAD
For the outsider, Kraljevo may seem a
rather remote recycling outpost. But if
you look closely at the map of the
Balkans, you will notice the city’s stra-
tegic central position with proper
road, water and railway connections
to the north (Belgrade, Hungary), east
(Romania and Turkey), and southwest
(Montenegro and Albania).
No wonder the company supplies
steel mills both at home and in neigh-
bouring countries. One third goes to
the HBIS steel plant (better known as
Železara Smederevo) near Belgrade,
one third is shipped to the world’s
biggest steel scrap consumer Turkey
and the final third ends up in the
smelter of the Elbasan steel mill in
Albania.

NON-STOP TO ELBASAN
The Kraljevo facility has one big
advantage – direct access onto the
railway. ‘Up to 15 wagons can be
loaded right here where we stand’,
says Muškinja.
Trains loaded with scrap go directly to
end-users. ‘There is a direct train
which leaves our site, passes through
Montenegro, and goes further south

Maja Muškinja:
‘There is a
direct train
which
leaves our site,
passes through
Montenegro,
and goes fur-
ther
south to the
steel mills in
Elbasan,
Albania.’ Space has been created to build up the scrap stocks again.

PLASTIC FLAkES FOR ISTANBUL
Ferrous scrap has made Steel Impex the mature
company it is today. But the share of other com-
modities traded is growing and may increasingly
dictate future business success.
The Kraljevo operation houses a modern e-scrap
recycling division in which electronics are disman-
tled and cables stripped. There is also a hall dedi-
cated to the sorting and cleaning of plastic bottles
that features a modern washing line. Bags filled
with clean flakes, around 70 tonnes per month, are
shipped by truck to PET producers in Istanbul,
Turkey.

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