Celtic Renewables - early days

Companies registered 

2 March 2011.   Company incorporated and registered at Companies House as ANDSTRAT (NO.353) LIMITED

30 June 2011.  Company changes name to Celtic Renewables Limited.

30 June 2017.  Celtic Renewables Grangemouth Limited incorporated.

Both companies are registered under the following SIC codes:

• 20140 - Manufacture of other organic basic chemicals
• 38320 - Recovery of sorted materials
• 72190 - Other research and experimental development on natural sciences and engineering

Shares issued

20 December 2022

Shares issued according to Memorandum and Articles:

Ordinary shares :  3,035,421

Preference shares:  1,518,574

Total issued:  4,553,815

Crowdfunding from October/November 2020

In the autumn of 2020, Celtic Renewables raised a total of  £ 3,680,213 through a crowdfunding exercise on Crowdcube, equivalent to 423,013 shares at  £8.70 per share.  2,444 small shareholders recruited with an average holding of £1,506 and 173 shares.

Crowdfunding from 2021

In the late autumn of 2020, Celtic Renewables raised £2,083,100 a second crowdfunding on Crowdcube.  2,404 small shareholders recruited with an average holding of £866 each.

Crowdfunding from March 2024

5 April 2024

Company announces a new round of fundraising on Crowdcube.

17 May 2024

Company announces £2.8m raised (110% of target) to nearly 600 investors, approximately £4,600 each.

23 May 2024

Company announces £2.84m raised from almost 650 investors. approximately £4,300 each.

31 May 2024

Company confirms that £3,069,130 raised from 912 investors or £3,365 each.

Key facts and milestones gleaned from communications.

Spring Investor Update 2022

• Mid-Covid.  Company affected with 50% of operations and commissioning team affected.
• The commissioning of the plant continues at pace.
• The final stage of commissioning – underway.
• The first customer is Caldic. The company will use its own branded tanker to transport Acetone, Butanol and Ethanol, to Caldic’s UK HQ in South Yorkshire.
• In addition to Caldic, demand is so high  that the output from Grangemouth is many times over-subscribed.
• Company quickly looking to the future to establish larger plants to capitalise on this demand.

Summer Investor Update 2022

• The last quarter, since the update in early April, was a mixture of “ups” and “downs”,
• Overall Celtic Renewables continued to make good progress, despite the challenges the company still faced.
• The principal activity  remained the bringing into operation of the first plant at Caledon Green, Grangemouth.
• Additional funds both from crowd investors and from our large private investors earlier this year.
• Target  to achieve large-scale fermentations in the following weeks, which will trigger the final phase of commissioning, of our solvent recovery system (SRS).
• One of the main impacts of the challenges and delays at the Caledon Green plant was in relation to the debt financing that they drew for the plant construction from both Scottish Enterprise and Abundance Investment.
• Company proactively engaged with  lenders to restructure their terms and avoid triggering a requirement to repay those loans. 
• It was the company's intention to extend the Scottish Enterprise loan, with the loan remaining in their project subsidiary,
•  Secondly, Abundance investors (c. 1,900 investors) agreed to  convert their loan into equity in Celtic Renewables Ltd, the parent company. 
• The effect of the Abundance loan conversion into equity will be to dilute crowd investors holding by c.1.4% of the total share capital table. 
• Celtic Renewables entered into an agreement with Rothes CoRDe Limited (the owner of a biomass renewable energy plant in Speyside, fuelled by local malt whisky distillery co-products) to invest development time and resources in a proposition for the next plant.
• The plant will have a capacity of c.8-10 times greater than that at Caledon Green
• The agreed target is to commence construction of the next plant early next year, with the expectation that it will be operational in late 2024 (within 2 years from the start of construction)

13 January 2023

• Alloted 631,974 preference shares at £10
• Disapply pre-emption rights on these allotted shares.
• Progress of Caledon Green continues with issues.
• Restructuring of debt with Scottish Enterprise and debenture funding from Abundance complete.
• First customer Caldic has a full order book.
• Good progress made with Rothes CoRDe on second plant in Speyside.

20 March 2023

• Celtic Renewables raised £2.5m via Convertible Loan Agreements (“CLAs”) in February 2023 (“New Investment”)
• All existing shareholders' holdings, including Crowdcube Nominees who hold the shares on our behalf, to be diluted proportionately from 8.87% to 6.92% , with a fully diluted position of 6.34%.

6 April 2023

• Completed a new round of funding of £9m, via convertible loan notes into the company and some additional debt funding into our project subsidiary. This provides us with a funding runway well into Q2 2024, by which time we expect the plant at Caledon Green to be generating net positive revenues.
• Speyside project (Plant 2) –  appointed engineering design partners have commenced the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) process,

11 October 2023

• Caledon Green plant  at Grangemouth producing commercial quality products.

• Slightly behind the timetable set at the beginning of the year.
• The remainder of the year and into 2024 focused on achieving steady state in the process.
• Continuing to develop several next stage large-scale plant opportunities, focused on the existing technology based in Scotland and Ireland.
• The latest management accounts (August 2023) include a cash balance of £2.1m, £0.5m greater than budgeted.
• The second tranche of the 2023 funding round was drawn down during September, when the final £2.5m of the £9m round was to be called by the Company.  This to provide a fund runway to at least March 2024.

16 November 2023

• New logo announced.

27 February 2024

• Good progress in the early part of the year.
• Samples sent to 40 potential clients.
• Focusing on getting the plant fully operable.
• Plan to develop and build four plants in the next five years, which will be 8-10x the capacity of the first plant with target revenues of over £120m by 2029.
• March to June target of £6m fund raising.
• Target to raise £25m in series B funding by September. (no further announcements).

12 April 2024

• Positive feedback from potential customers receiving their first samples earlier in the year.
• First sales expected to go to Caldic partner and first customer in April.
• Confirmation of fund raise on Crowdcube with a target of £6m.
• Preview of new company website to reflect a business now operating and selling to customers.

23 April 2024

• Crowdfunding launched.
• A 3 year offtake agreement worth £2-3m per years announced, but as the company is communicating this information to existing shareholders, does this mean a different customer from Caldic?

31 May 2024

• Update on the crowdfunding round. 'Becoming a leader of a $5trn industry.
• Confirms an immediate demand of 18,000 tonnes of green chemicals, increasing to between 30,000 and 50,000 tonnes within 3-5 years (2027-2029).

28 November 2024

• The first tanker of sustainably produced bio acetone and biobutanol shippped.
• Green chemicals generate up to a 65% carbon saving in comparison to petrochemicals and for every tonne of bio acetone or biobutanol produced, almost 3 tonnes of carbon is saved.
• Celtic Renewables is addressing the $2billion global market for green chemicals.  Not sure why in May the company said it was a $5trn industry.
• Demand for bio acetone and biobutanol is high.

25 April 2025

• The company now shipping regularly to customers with the fermentation process yielding more than target, aiming to reach 7 fermentations per week by the end of the year (and already reaching 6)
• Ernst-Young Project Willow Report points to Grangemouth becoming  a low carbon manufacturing hub (replacing the 75 year old petro-chemical plant which has now closed down.  Celtic Renewables aiming to build a 'world-scale' refinery,  but no mention of what this means, or if it replaces the other 4 new plants planned.

1 July 2025

Chemical Industry Journal published a story about Celtic Renewables

'Celtic Renewables is poised to lead a new era in chemicals manufacturing after its core technology was cited as key to the country’s low carbon future' 

The article says that Celtic Renewables has now been catapulted into the spotlight after the recently-published Project Willow report cited ABE biorefining as one of just nine credible options to secure the long-term future of Grangemouth while forging a new low carbon path.  Mark Simmers CEO seems to confirm that the former oil refining site will be where the company next expands.  

Does this mean one of the four new plants will be built here or are they looking at something much bigger?   We can only guess.

Full article here.

6 August  2025

Via an article in High Growth Scot, we learn that the board has been bolstered by the appointment of a COO an a new CFO, the latter we know about from Companies House in April that we've not been told about. Full article here.  A few quotes: 

'Scottish green chemical manufacturer Celtic Renewables has bolstered its senior leadership team with the appointment of Bettina Brierley as Chief Commercial Officer and Kerry Crawford as Chief Financial Officer. 

' Commenting on the appointments, Mark Simmers, CEO at Celtic Renewables, said, “This is a pivotal time for Celtic Renewables. We’re making regular shipments to customers and are now looking to scale to meet customer demand for green chemicals.  With Bettina and Kerry onboard, the task of scaling becomes much easier. Their expertise in both the chemical and oil and gas sectors is invaluable and will enable unprecedented growth in the business.''  Jolly good.

18 September 2025

I was about to share some of my thoughts concerning the shortage of news when today I received  a newsletter.  

In summary, everything has changed.  If you don't scavenge around for Celtic Renewables news and rely on the company, then today's mail is quite a shock.

Essentially, it confirms that the company, instead of raising funding for 3-4 new larger plants  that plan has been replaced by a massive investment in the former Grangemouth oil refinery.  See 1 July above.  This is great news as the intention is build an 'industrial sized' plant as part of Project Willow, plus two other smaller (presumably 2 of the 3 originally planned  new sites).  Funding remains challenging and the company has been kept afloat by  Scottish Enterprise and existing equity investors who have continued to support the company.   The company acknowledges insatiable demand and the need to be able to meet it while clearly the £25m planned for Series B funding has not materialised.  I had initially suggested that this money was planned investment in the 2-4 larger scale projects.  However, this was incorrect.  This effectively for working capital.

More information here.

28 September 2025

An online meeting took place on Monday 22 September with the ' Abundance shareholders',  shareholders who original loaned money to Celtic Renewables a number of years ago.  After the difficulties created by the Covid crisis which beset the trial plant in Caledon with delays, and unavoidable challenges for the construction of the  first plant. these loans were converted into ordinary shares in 2022. 

The full value of the loans is not known.  However, last year it is believed that some form of interest was  promised to  the shareholders as part of the agreement to convert them into shares.  This was due in September 2024.  It could not be paid and the shareholders voted to defer the interest until this month.  However, the board have confirmed that given the very difficult circumstances of the investment market, they have requested that this interest be deferred for a further  two years, subject to approval by vote in October.

The £25m Series B funding that the company was seeking last year has not materialised.  However, the company can see its way forward with funding until the end of next year secure through a mixture of grants and loans, notably from Scottish Enterprise.

Part of the difficulty for lenders' reluctance  to lend was the the maturity of the concept which was not seemed to have been sufficient.

Over the last months PWC have provided further market intelligence and PX, an independent consulting firm,l have have validated the company's plan.  

In addition to which, as mentioned before , Project Willow earlier in the year threw the company a curved ball and an opportunity to build one of the planned larger plants on the former site of the Grangemouth oil refinery, which finally closed in May after over fifty years.  Over 400 jobs were lost at the time.

In addition, the two plants mooted at Kerry Menstrie  in Clackmanmonshire  and Grissan in the Highlands, are still in the plans.  It is not clear whether they will all be to the same scale, as obviously the former Grangemouth oil refinery site ( Project Willow)  offers a bigger opportunity.  

The new plant is quoted as being able to produce 6,000 tonnes per year of product with the focus on Bio Acetone and Bio Butanol.  However, the test plant produced Bio Ethanol as well.

A number of other figures were shared which frankly were inconsistent with what has been communicated before and inconsistent with the actual presentation.  For example, the presentation stated that the immediately addressable market is 100,000 tonnes of product, worth $600m, while Mr Simmers said while presenting that it was £600m.  The price per tonne therefore worked out at either £6,000 or $6,000 depending on which currency is correct, whereas the global potential worked at at $1,500 per tonne.  He also said that the 100,000 tonnes was equivalent to 15 large scale plants meaning one plant could produce around 6,600 tonnes per year.  There will be more analysis of this on the analysis page soon.

Ultimately the aspiration is to make the Final Investment Decision (FID) in June next year.  Meanwhile, Front End Engineering Design (FEED) for the Grangemouth plant will start in October, running through to May  2026.

At the end of the meeting one of the Abundance investors asked  if we can have more than one update per year. Quite right too.

1 October 2025

Annual report and consolidated accounts available from Companies House for Celtic Renewables for the year ending 31 December 2025 are available.

These consolidated accounts show:

A turnover of £68,772.

Cost of sales £4,050,841

Gross loss :  £3,982,069

Administrative costs:  £6,916,854

operating loss:  £10,745,795

Interest receivable: £10,510

Interest payable and similar: £3,328,249.

Loss to date:  £52,474,354

Accounts for Celtic Renewables (Grangemouth) Limited have also been published and showed that the company made a loss of  £7,743,415 for the year ending 2024 versus a loss of  £5,705, 697 in 2023.

Full downloadable versions.

This is the first time that Celtic Renewables accounts  have been reported as consolidated accounts and they  need to be read in connection with the accounts for Celtic Renewables (Grangemouth) Limited.

6 October 2025

This morning I received an anonymous email which says:  ''I read and recognise everything that is being said, but things are much worse than you fear. Try speaking to some ex employees who can tell you the real story.''

.... And this afternoon I receive  a second anonymous mail which said (edited) : '' The working environment at Celtic Renewables has serious problems. There’s a high staff turnover, and the company seems poorly managed. More executives keep getting hired in an attempt to fix things.  Last year there were some redundancies that weren’t openly discussed. ... Overall, the business model doesn’t seem sustainable. The costs, especially staffing costs, appear to outweigh what the company can make from producing solvents.''