Green biotech firms to open factories at Grangemouth; Oracle shares tumble

Green biotech firms to open factories in Grangemouth

Severin Carrell

Two green biotechnology firms have announced they will build new factories at Scotland’s Grangemouth site which will employ up to 460 people, in the first phase of projects to replace hundreds of jobs lost when the PetroIneos refinery closed down.

The projects by MiAlgae, a start-up based in Edinburgh which uses whisky waste to make fish-free Omega 3 oils, and Celtic Renewables, which uses whisky and agricultural byproducts to make chemicals, have won £10m in funding from the Scottish and UK governments to build new plants at Grangemouth.

MiAlgae’s founder and chief executive Douglas Martin said their Omega 3 plant would start production in the second quarter of 2026, employing 75 people. It uses whisky wash, a byproduct, of whisky production to produce plant-based Omega 3 for pet food and fish farm feed.

Martin said their modular plant, which has been given £3m by the UK and Scottish governments, can be rapidly expanded to eventually create up to 310 jobs. Celtic Renewables, which uses agricultural byproducts to make acetone, butanol and ethanol used in cosmetics, chemicals and has been given £6.23m to build a plant expected to employ 149 by 2030.

The projects are being funded by the Grangemouth just transition fund and are linked to the Project Willow programme run by Scottish Enterprise to replace the 400 jobs lost when Grangemouth’s refinery closed down earlier this year, fueling a political storm over mounting job losses from North Sea industries.

Its closure is believed to affect up to 4,200 other jobs in the wider supply chain, intensifying pressure on both governments and Scottish Enterprise to quickly bring in high value jobs.

Jan Robertson, Scottish Enterprise’s director of Grangemouth transition, said both firms were expected to be part of a closely integrated supply and production chain which connected waste and byproducts from farms, food producers and whisky distilleries with bio-energy and bio-technology companies.

The investment agency has been in talks with 140 firms interested in investing at Grangemouth: the long-term goal is to see a sustainable aviation fuel refinery and plastics recycling plants built there.