Fortescue doubles down on decarbonisation as industry goes green

Fortescue Metals Group has announced it plans to invest $9.2 billion by 2030 to eliminate fossil fuel risk to its business, in the process banking $1.2 billion a year in reduced operating costs.

The investment will achieve real zero terrestrial emissions – Scope 1 and 2 – across its iron ore operations by 2030 and ‘and enable it to supply its customers with a carbon free product’.

The move, confirming decarbonisation is accelerating as industry positions itself for a low carbon future, will support Fortescue’s move into green manufacturing and would no doubt utilise equipment to be manufactured at its facility now under construction in Gladstone, Queensland.

Fortescue Future Industries has announced the facility will manufacture electrolysers to produce green hydrogen and other equipment.

Fortescue Executive Chairman Dr Andrew Forrest said: “We are already seeing direct benefits of the transition away from fossil fuels – we avoided 78 million litres of diesel usage at our Chichester Hub in FY22.

“But we must accelerate our transition to the post fossil fuel era, driving global scale industrial change as climate change continues to worsen.

“It will also protect our cost base, enhance our margins and set an example that a post fossil fuel era is good commercial, common sense.”

Fortescue expects to generate attractive economic returns from its investment arising from the operating cost savings due to the elimination of diesel, natural gas, and carbon offset purchases from its supply chain.

“Fortescue, FFI and FMG, is moving at speed to transition into a global green metals, minerals, energy Forrest said: and technology Company, capable of delivering not just green iron ore but also the minerals, knowledge and technology critical to the energy transition.”

Fortescue made the announcement at the invitation of US President Biden’s First Movers Coalition and the United Nations Global Compact, with the Secretary General of the United Nations at the CEO roundtable on “Business leadership to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals”.

Fortescue is a founding member of the First Movers Coalition.

When fully implemented, Fortescue’s decarbonisation strategy and associated investment will avoid three million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions per annum

Picture: Autonomous haulage at Chichester Hub