ARGENT ENERGY: Scaling Up the Low Carbon Fuel Ready to Deliver Today
International, European, and UK legislation remain unaligned in the maritime space, and innovative fuel manufacturers are waiting for concrete direction. FAME-based biodiesel is one of the easiest and most effective drop-in solutions for the diesel engine sector, and is already proven in road transport. Dickon Posnett, Director of Corporate Affairs at Argent Energy, tells Energy Focus more about preparing big capacity for longer-term roll out as decarbonisation strategies continue to develop.
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Interview with Dickon Posnett, Director of Corporate Affairs
Transport remains one of the most stubborn sectors in the European decarbonisation story. Aviation, shipping and heavy road freight are sectors where electrification cannot arrive quickly enough to meet the timelines that climate targets demand, and where the alternatives — green hydrogen, synthetic fuels, ammonia — are either years from commercial scale or significantly more expensive than what they replace.
Into that gap, fatty acid methyl ester biodiesel — FAME — has been quietly and consistently doing the work that the headlines have overlooked. Produced from waste fats and oils, it delivers carbon savings of between 80% and 90% compared to fossil diesel, and is available now. Argent Energy has been making it for more than 18 years, and the story of progress that Energy Focus highlighted in September 2025 has not slowed down.
Last year, Argent was preparing to close its Motherwell plant in Scotland, navigating unfair competition from subsidised imports, and building toward completion of a major new biodiesel facility in Amsterdam. The market has remained tough. The regulatory environment in the UK has continued to lag behind Europe. But the company has continued to build and invest in The Netherlands — and the Amsterdam expansion is now approaching the finish line.
“Our capacity is 95,000 tons at Stanlow,” says Director of Corporate Affairs, Dickon Posnett. “In the Netherlands, we are finalising the new build which will add another 220,000 tons. It is effectively an addition to biodiesel production capacity, and a new facility on our existing site which is also home to our glycerine plant.”
With that new build commission, Argent will operate a total production capacity of around 415,000 tonnes across its UK and Dutch operations, placing it among the larger waste-based biodiesel producers in Europe. The work in Amsterdam is in its final phase and is attracting attention of many looking to decarbonise.
“All of the construction is done, the mechanical engineering is being finalised, all of the process engineering is being finished; it’s just fine tuning everything in the last step as we approach full commissioning,” Posnett says. “This last stage of a project is always where we dive right down to the nuts and bolts to ensure everything is right. “
Commissioning is expected after the summer of 2026, and Posnett is confident in the demand side: “We are confident that the offtake will be there when the production is fully up and running. Europe is implementing Renewable Energy Directive III, country by country, and targets for transport decarbonisation continue to rise.”
The Amsterdam site, located directly on the water in the Port of Amsterdam, offers Argent the geographic flexibility that makes the Dutch operation particularly valuable. Biodiesel produced there can be directed toward whichever European market offers the strongest returns at any given moment, whether for road or marine, — an operational advantage in a regulatory landscape that varies meaningfully across member states. The Port of Amsterdam has also recognised the climate contribution of the operation, supporting the site’s expansion through its transition fund as Argent works to reduce its own carbon footprint by 10% annually.
DIESELITE GAINS TRACTION
On the UK side, the product story has taken a significant step forward with the establishment and growth of the Dieselite brand — a high-blend FAME biodiesel product targeting captive fleets of trucks and buses. Launched earlier in 2025, Dieselite offers fleet operators a drop-in fuel that delivers carbon savings well above what standard B7 pump diesel achieves. “Dieselite is a very cost-effective solution for captive fleets in truck and bus,” Posnett says. “It’s a sector that we have been servicing quite well over the last 18 years, and we are now specialists at refining the right blend levels to achieve the best carbon reductions.”
Over 9,000 vehicles are currently refuelled with Dieselite in the UK, supplied directly by Argent Fuels. The flexibility of the blending model is one of its defining commercial advantages. “We blend our biodiesel with fossil diesel at high blend levels, well above B10, depending on what the customer wants, using our flexible blending arrangements,” Posnett explains. “We have the ability to blend at 17%, 18% or 22% — or whatever the customer wants in any week or month.”
Seasonal variation is built in, and warmer months see higher blend levels, which customers welcome for the corresponding carbon savings, while winter sees blends reduced to B15 or B20. Blending takes place at Argent Oil Terminals in Scotland, near the Stanlow site and at the company’s Dagenham facility, enabling efficient distribution across London and the southeast of England as well as the rest of the UK.
The European Biodiesel Board estimates that European transport accounts for around a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, making it one of the most pressing targets for policy-driven decarbonisation. The EEA’s data confirms that while overall EU greenhouse gas emissions have fallen, transport remains one of the few sectors where emissions are not yet on a clear downward trajectory. Against that background, a lower-carbon fuel that meaningfully cuts lifecycle carbon compared to fossil diesel, with no vehicle modification required, is a straightforward solution ready to deploy today — and one that Argent has spent nearly two decades perfecting.
MARINE AND THE REGULATORY GAP
The marine sector remains an area of significant potential and significant frustration. Argent’s Amsterdam location places it at the heart of one of Europe’s busiest inland and sea-going shipping corridors, and the FuelEU Maritime regulation, alongside the Renewable Energy Directive’s implementation in the Netherlands, is beginning to drive genuine demand for FAME-based marine fuels. “Some of our marine biofuel blend developments, both for inland marine and sea-going vessels, are advanced and already being used in ships right now,” Posnett confirms.
The International Maritime Organisation’s hoped-for global carbon reduction framework for shipping has stalled. “The IMO were hoping to lay out a carbon reduction plan for international shipping, which is great for the planet and something that Argent Energy strongly supports,” Posnett says. “It was scuppered when some nations reprioritised away from addressing climate change.”
The consequence is a patchwork of EU-level regulation that goes as far as European waters and no further, making compliance complex for international operators and slowing the investment case for marine biofuel supply. “An international scheme for promoting carbon reductions in marine is a very sensible way to go forward for an industry that operates internationally all the time,” he argues.
In the UK, the gap is even more pronounced. Marine decarbonisation policy remains underdeveloped, while the Netherlands is advancing under RED and FuelEU Maritime frameworks that create real demand signals. The result is an uneven playing field that leaves marine biodiesel supply in the UK at an early development stage, and Argent in a holding pattern until regulatory clarity arrives. “The problem is the delay in demand creation and the surety that we need to be able to invest further in that sector,” Posnett says. “Without the need to follow European Directives, the UK is in danger of lagging behind and dis-incentivising investments in the country.”
The wider expansion picture is similarly contingent on policy. RED III implementation is underway, but the UK’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation revision has been delayed, and without confirmed trajectory on demand growth, large capital commitments cannot be justified. “We are waiting for various targets to be finalised,” Posnett says. “Without those incentives and the knowledge about how the demand level will increase over the years, you cannot invest in future production.”
In the interim, the company is investing in process efficiency and quality improvement. “We are spending a lot of time internally improving efficiencies in our processes and ensuring production and operations are of the best quality they can possibly be.”
Trade threats add a further layer of complexity. Unfairly subsidised biodiesel imports from countries remain a competitive challenge, requiring ongoing engagement with trade defence authorities. Argent Energy is active in that space, working alongside industry bodies to ensure that domestic producers can compete on a level playing field with imports that would otherwise undercut them regardless of quality or sustainability credential.
Despite all of it, the confidence in the underlying proposition does not waver. “FAME based biodiesels from waste is still, and will be for many years to come, a highly, if not the most cost-effective way of decarbonising in the diesel engine sector, whether in heavy goods vehicles or in shipping,” Posnett says. “Therefore, we are very clear that these assets will be very important for decades in the decarbonisation and de-fossilisation of internal combustion engines. Whatever pace electrification happens, or doesn’t, we are there to help maximise the bio element of what goes into diesel engines that are still going to be driving vehicles, whether for the next 15, 20 or 30 years.”
Clearly, Argent and its product range isn’t competing with electrification. It is complementing it — available now, at scale, across the vehicles and vessels that will continue to run on liquid fuel for as long as the transition takes. When the policy environment catches up with the technology, the capacity will be there.