Argent Energy is the UK's leading waste-to-energy biodiesel producer and has always been privately owned. The business was established in 2001 and in 2009 it was bought by a consortium which includes senior managment plus Souter Investments, the private investment company of Brian Souter and family.

Our plant, near Motherwell in Scotland, started production in 2005 and represents an initial capital investment of around £17 million. This was supported by grants from the Scottish Executive and the European Union. The plant has been the focus of an EU project to develop and demonstrate biodiesel production using a mixture of animal tallow and used cooking oil rather than virgin oils.

In 2009, a further £1.8million was invested, supported by a grant from the Scottish Government, to build a pre-processing facility. This allows us to remove impurities from our raw materials ourselves ready for the chemical biodiesel production process. It means that we can use more locally produced tallow as well as used cooking oil and so further improve our carbon footprint and help add value to the Scottish red meat sector.

The state of the art technology used at our plant was developed by BDI-BioEnergy International - an Austrian Firm with collaborative links to the Universities of Graz in Austria, who are pioneers in this field.