PA MediaA long-awaited report says up to 800 jobs could be created over the next 15 years at the Grangemouth site, where the UK’s oldest oil refinery is set to close.
The Project Willow study, which was funded by the Scottish and UK governments, sets out nine areas for potential private investment in green industries.
It says jobs could be created in areas like sustainable aviation fuel, hydrogen production and plastics recycling.
Owner Petroineos is shutting the loss-making refinery at the sprawling industrial complex on the Firth of Forth with the loss of 400 jobs.
The report, by consultants EY, lists nine potential uses for the wider site, which employs around 2,000 people.
About 480 jobs could be created with the manufacture of e-methanol for jet fuel and e-ammonia for shipping – but that would require £6.6bn of private investment and would not be operational until around 2035, the report said.
Plastics recycling could be done much sooner, within five years, at a cost of about £600m. It is estimated around 250 jobs could be created.
The report called on the UK government to bring forward market reforms of the electricity sector to bring down the cost of hydrogen production.
Ministers should also encourage farmers to focus on plant-based products which can be turned into fuels, it said.
Although we’ve waited months for this, Project Willow is just the starting gun being fired on what could happen to Grangemouth.
Matching the ambition and the reality is not an easy job. In fact it’s never really been achieved before.
But among the big companies which operate on this huge industrial complex there is a renewed sense of optimism because governments are now engaging with them seriously on what could be achieved.
The report sets out the options but it still requires billions of pounds in private cash. Decisions on whether to spend that money have to be done with an assurance of a return on that investment.
Moving operations to other parts of the world, like the Middle East, the US and Australia, look like more favourable options at the minute.
What both governments do next will be crucial.
Cheaper renewable electricity and regulator reform are two key areas identified for change.
The report talks about 800 potential new jobs but this whole town relies on a green industry developing at Grangemouth, so this will be a key test in whether a just and fair transition can ever truly be achieved.
The Grangemouth oil refinery, the only such plant in Scotland, was established in 1924 by Scottish Oils, a subsidiary of the Anglo Persian Oil Company which was the forerunner of BP.
After World War Two the site developed into a wider petro-chemical complex and from the 1970s it handled increasing quantities of North Sea Oil brought south by the Forties pipeline system.
But in 2020, the refinery’s current owners Petroineos, a joint venture between Ineos and PetroChina, mothballed some facilities, blaming reduced demand for road and jet fuels.
In November 2023, the firm announced plans to shut the refinery completely, replacing it with a fuels import terminal.
