Forget Whisky Galore!: Could Shetland’s next liquid gold be a very different, but increasingly vital, kind of alcohol?

The company—EnQuest, or to be more accurate, a specialist subsidiary called Veri Energy, which it set up in 2023 to take some of the assets, skills and infrastructure developed through oil and gas and repurpose them for lower-carbon energy projects—says it wants to start pumping at least 30,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of e-fuel.

And if it does, this could provide another significant step in a by-way to Net Zero we could really use: a viable example of PtX, Power-to-X, where we use electricity—especially renewable electricity—to produce other forms of energy in the form of fuels, chemicals, or other useful products. 

Multiple uses for what would otherwise be dangerous waste (and we don’t mean non-single malts)

First thing to note, sadly, is that we can’t drink this form of ‘alcohol’ (if you did ingest any either accidentally or deliberately, it could result in permanent blindness, brain injury or death, unfortunately).

In any case, as stated, a renewable source (wind) will be combined with carbon from biological sources (e.g., waste, fermentation, or biomass processes) and hydrogen to produce a kind of fuel that could be used instead of fossil-based maritime fuel,  e-methanol/CH₃OH, (a direction we looked at back in 2024).

For sure, 30,000 tpa is a modest start, but anything that meets Fuel EU Maritime requirements will be of interest to the shipping industry, as it requires players to reduce the greenhouse-gas intensity of energy used by commercial ships above 5,000 gross tonnage and accelerate the adoption of low-carbon and renewable marine fuels. And as of February 2026, there are 449 MeOH Vessels on order or already operating. 

And, on the current scale of things, it’s actually pretty significant; the world’s largest e-methanol plant, in Kassø, Southern Denmark, is aiming for only 42,000 tpa, after all.

Putting this into context, it’s been estimated that all of e-methanol sector is scaling quickly from pilot to industrial relevance, with at least 48 million tonnes meant to be flowing by 2031.

So, plans like this really do make a lot of sense—but not just for fuel: Veri Energy says it is actively seeking maritime customers for the e-methanol, but are also exploring e-methanol as a way for producing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), with facilities at Grangemouth under consideration.

A sound economic basis for a sound economic plan

Interestingly, Shetland was not selected for any romantic reasons, but sound economics. Northern Scotland and Shetland are among Europe’s strongest wind corridors: onshore wind capacity factors on Shetland are around 52% compared to a UK offshore average of 40, making them ideal for the kind of hydrogen-heavy electrolysis systems that are critical for e-fuel economics.

The Shetland project will also nicely repurpose existing energy infrastructure (e.g., terminal and port assets) on-site—a nice example of not adding more carbon through building, which is one of GHG’s biggest sinners.

Even better, the plan is to get the power via a private wire from an onshore wind farm adjacent to the Sullom Voe terminal that’s currently in development. But what we particularly like about this is use of that lovely biogenic CO₂, which avoids fossil carbon extraction and joins the growing orchestra of companies like our innovative cleantech client Remediiate in turning waste gas into a traded input stream.

We also note that this could reinforce e-methanol is emerging as a potential storage mechanism for renewable electricity in liquid chemical form, rather than a traditional fuel market.

“Whisky… in Gaelic they call it ‘the water of life’”

Postscript: In the wonderful Ealing Comedy classic Whisky Galore! (1949), based on a real wartime shipwreck incident, the inhabitants of a on a fictional Scottish island’s whisky supply runs out just as a boat runs aground off their coast, carrying 50,000 bottles of the water of life.

The islanders secretly salvage the whisky from the wreck, but they have a problem: British customs officials arrive to recover the cargo.

If you’ve not seen it ,we won’t spoil any more, but the message might be that this time, those Scots—and indeed, the rest of us—will be much better off leaving the liquid gold alone to be sent off for much better purposes than even a wee dram (or three).