Greenergy Locks In Grangemouth Tanks After Scotland Stops Refining

Greenergy is now the majority tenant at Exolum’s Grangemouth fuel terminal, with kerosene in dedicated tanks. The long-term agreement announced in June 2025 took effect on 1 June 2026, 11 months after the first statement and more than a year after Scotland’s last refinery ran its final crude.

Caroline Lumbard, UK managing director at Greenergy, said the extra tankage lets the firm bring in larger ships. That is the commercial answer to a plant that no longer makes petrol or diesel on the Forth.

Greenergy Took Majority Control of Exolum’s Forth Tanks

On 25 June 2025 Greenergy said it had agreed to raise capacity at the Exolum terminal in Grangemouth and to widen supply across Scotland. Lumbard said then that the company was strengthening its Scottish kit and that the deal “creates additional capacity where it is needed.”

The follow-through arrived on 1 June 2026. Greenergy took over most of the terminal’s capacity that day and became the site’s majority tenant, with dedicated storage for road fuels, gasoil and kerosene. A new depot for its in-house fleet, Flexigrid, sits close to the terminal and includes parking for customers.

Lynne McGuigan, hired from Petroineos to lead sales in Scotland and Northern Ireland, said the new contract supplies “the capacity that will be needed in the future” and a wider choice of fuels, including kerosene. Greenergy also added a commercial manager in Falkirk.

HOW THE FORTH FUEL MARKET WAS REBUILT

1. 12 September 2024: Petroineos says Grangemouth will stop refining in 2025 and become an import terminal, with about 400 jobs to go.
2. 28 April 2025: The 150,000 barrel-a-day plant processes its last crude, ending a run that began in 1924.
3. 29 April 2025: Iain Hardie, Petroineos regional head of legal and external affairs, says the firm will import all the transport fuels Scotland needs.
4. 25 June 2025: Greenergy announces extra capacity at Exolum Grangemouth.
5. 1 June 2026: Greenergy becomes majority tenant and puts kerosene into store.
6. July 2026: Lumbard says the biggest operational change is the size of import ships the extra tanks can support.

Greenergy is a UK-based supplier and a large European maker of waste-based biodiesel, with plants on Teesside and in Amsterdam. Its own figures show 12 billion litres of fuel supplied worldwide in the nine months to 30 September 2025, more than 20 UK supply points, and more than 2,000 staff globally.

Larger Ships Now Carry Scotland’s Road Fuel

Asked how the refinery shutdown had changed day-to-day supply, Lumbard said the company had rewritten parts of the chain as its tankage at Exolum grew. The change that matters most, she said, is vessel size.

Since the closure of the Grangemouth refinery and as Greenergy has increased its tankage footprint in the Exolum terminal, we have changed our fuel supply chain in a number of ways. The most important being the size of ships we can use for imports. Bringing in larger ships allows us more supply flexibility, reduces demurrage and creates efficiencies within the supply chain, thus enabling Greenergy to remain competitive in the region.

Caroline Lumbard, UK Managing Director, Greenergy, July 2026 interview

Bigger cargoes only pay if there is tank space to receive them and a jetty that is not blocked by smaller ships waiting to discharge. Extra dedicated tanks cut that congestion, Lumbard said, and let Greenergy time movements across Scotland rather than drip-feed product in short lots.

That logic now sits in writing in Westminster too. In January 2026 Greenergy told a Commons energy committee that UK domestic production had fallen and that import logistics after the Lindsey closure made working jetties, storage, blending and road links more important for keeping prices from jumping around.

The company still talks about “choice of fuels” and global chains. On the Forth the practical meaning is simpler. Scotland buys finished product at sea, and the firm that can berth a larger ship and empty it fast sets the terms.

Two Terminals, One Firth, Different Jobs

Grangemouth did not go dark. It split. Petroineos spent £50 million (US$66.4 million) turning the old refinery into a modern import and fuels distribution terminal that takes petrol, diesel, heating product and aviation fuel by sea and sends it out by road, jetty, rail and pipeline. Hardie said that from 29 April 2025 the company would import everything needed to meet Scotland’s demand for transport fuels.

Exolum’s site is a separate tank farm at Grange Dock, run by Exolum Grangemouth Ltd. The Spanish logistics group, which lists Grangemouth and Clydebank among UK sites, says it holds a fifth of UK bulk tank storage and 24 UK terminals with 2.5 million cubic metres of space. Greenergy is a tenant there, not the landlord, and now the largest one.

When Petroineos first said it would shut the stills, the plant supplied 65% of Scotland’s demand for refined oil products and about 14% of UK refining capacity. About 400 jobs were due to go, with a plan to cut a refining workforce of 475 to fewer than 100 on the new terminal. Petroineos is a joint venture of Ineos (50.1%) and PetroChina (49.9%).

WHO HOLDS WHAT ON THE FORTH

Greenergy’s UK wholesale list now shows diesel, petrol, gasoil and kerosene from Grangemouth, plus Super 99. Clydebank carries diesel, Gasoil FAME 0, petrol, Super 99 and marine gasoil. Marine gasoil is on the Clyde, not on the Forth list.

Why Kerosene Came Back Onto the Slate

The June 2026 tenancy added kerosene because customers asked for it, Greenergy said, and because the Scottish heating market still runs on tankers rather than pipes. About 142,000 Scottish homes use heating oil. Another 27,000 use LPG. Those households sit outside the gas-price cap, so a jump in distillate shows up on the next fill.

In March 2026 heating oil averaged 153.74 pence a litre at the peak of a Middle East price spike. Holyrood’s emergency heating-oil scheme, opened on 1 April 2026, had made more than 6,700 payments by late September, when ministers extended it into winter. Rural and island homes take the hit first. Over 50% of homes in Na h-Eileanan an Iar rely on heating oil.

Putting kerosene into Grangemouth tanks does not cut that bill on its own. It shortens the haul from ship to farm tank and lets Greenergy sell longer contracts instead of spot loads when a cold week empties rural stocks. McGuigan tied the new product to “greater supply resilience for the region,” which in practice means east-coast storage for a fuel that used to arrive through a refinery that also made jet and diesel from the same crude.

Off-grid oil heat is not a side line in the Highlands. It is how a large share of homes stay warm, and it is the product Greenergy did not previously list at Grangemouth.

Lynne McGuigan Crossed From the Old Refinery

The people moved with the product. McGuigan came from Petroineos to run Greenergy’s Scotland and Northern Ireland book, and she is named on the company’s current wholesale contacts as sales manager for those nations. An extra commercial manager sits in Falkirk, a few miles from the dock gates.

That hire is how a post-refining market staffs itself. The old maker’s sales knowledge walks across town and starts selling imported barrels from independent tanks. Greenergy already had Clydebank on the west coast. Majority control at Grangemouth lets it treat the two Exolum sites as one Scottish system rather than a single Forth outpost fed by whatever parcel fitted the old jetty.

WHAT GREENERGY PUT ON THE GROUND

• Majority tanks: Long-term control of most Exolum Grangemouth capacity from 1 June 2026.
• Kerosene: Dedicated heating-oil storage added because customers asked for it.
• Flexigrid depot: New parking and dispatch site next to the terminal for the in-house tanker fleet.
• West-coast pair: Matching flows with Clydebank, which keeps marine gasoil and Gasoil FAME 0.
• Sales bench: McGuigan from Petroineos plus a Falkirk commercial manager.

Flexigrid is not a contractor logo on a cab door. Greenergy says the fleet has over 250 tankers and over 650 drivers, with UK scheduling and a 24-hour care desk. A depot beside Grangemouth is how those trucks turn imported cargo into farm, forecourt and depot drops without waiting on a third-party haulier for the last mile.

The £200 Million Fund Has Not Followed the Fuel

Public money is still aimed at a different Grangemouth. Project Willow, the joint UK and Scottish plan for the old industrial site, came with £200 million from London and £25 million from Edinburgh and a list of nine low-carbon ideas, from plastic recycling to sustainable aviation fuel. Unite Scotland’s Derek Thomson said at shutdown that not one penny of the National Wealth Fund could be unlocked without private investment, and that the projects would not start for years after the jobs had gone.

Private tankage did not wait. Greenergy’s majority tenancy is a commercial lease, not a regeneration grant. Fuel is already moving through Exolum’s tanks and Petroineos’s converted terminal while the £200 million National Wealth Fund still unused sits on terms that need a private backer. On 1 October 2026 Syngenta opened consultation on closing its Grangemouth chemicals plant, putting 377 jobs at risk, another reminder that the town’s remaining business is logistics as much as making.

Greenergy’s own Commons evidence argued that jetties and tanks are now the UK’s fuel-security kit, after Lindsey as well as Grangemouth. On the Forth that is no longer a forecast. It is how diesel, petrol and kerosene arrive, stored by a Spanish terminal owner and sold by a supplier that bet on extra tanks 11 months before it took the keys.

McGuigan is selling those imported litres from the same shore where Petroineos used to refine them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who Owns the Grangemouth Tanks Greenergy Is Using?

Exolum Grangemouth Ltd, company number SC041638, holds the Grange Dock terminal Greenergy now occupies as majority tenant. The firm was incorporated on 20 January 1965 and has been called The Ross Chemical & Storage Company, NuStar Grangemouth and Inter Terminals Grangemouth. CLH, later rebranded Exolum, completed its purchase of Inter Terminals’ UK sites on 13 November 2020.

How Large Is Greenergy’s Own UK Tanker Fleet?

Greenergy Flexigrid runs over 250 tankers and over 650 drivers, with a UK-based scheduling and customer-care team working around the clock. The new Grangemouth depot is an add-on to that in-house haulage arm, not a swap onto a third-party fleet, and it includes customer parking beside the terminal.

What Share of UK Vehicles Still Run on Oil?

Greenergy told the Commons energy committee in January 2026 that, on the latest DfT and DVLA licensing figures, over 87% of UK road vehicles are powered by fossil fuels only, a share that rises to over 95% if plug-in hybrids are included. That is why the firm still treats import tanks and blending kit as core kit during the shift to lower-carbon fuels.

Did Petroineos Keep Any Staff on the Old Refinery Site?

When the shutdown was announced in September 2024, Petroineos said the import terminal would need fewer than 100 employees, down from a refining workforce of 475, and that about 400 jobs would go. Iain Hardie later thanked staff who stayed through consultation, phased shutdown and the start of decommissioning, and said their work had kept fuel flowing to customers while crude processing ended.