Andrew Forrest plans ‘green energy giant’ producing renewable clean hydrogen

Andrew Forrest’s upstart green energy arm has long-term plans to produce 50 million tonnes a year of renewable clean hydrogen.

Andrew Forrest: ‘We are in a race to save the environment as we know it. A race to net zero.’ Picture: Colin Murty

Andrew Forrest’s upstart green energy arm has long-term plans to produce 50 million tonnes a year of renewable clean hydrogen, making it equivalent to the output of some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies.

In a speech to be given to a ­webinar hosted by the Clean Energy Council on Wednesday, Dr Forrest said Fortescue Metals Group subsidiary Fortescue ­Future Industries would be producing 15 million tonnes of renewable green hydrogen a year by 2030.

He said this would increase to 50 million tonnes a year over time, “a scale equal to the very largest oil and gas companies today”, which would help “build Australia into the renewable green hydrogen superpower of the world”.

Dr Forrest said FFI had reached agreements with countries all over the world to develop “significant energy sources” to produce renewable green hydrogen. This follows two major overseas trips by Dr Forrest and FFI executives – last year and earlier this year.

He said the company would also “aggressively pursue projects” across Australia and develop renewable energy “at an unprecedented scale”.

Dr Forrest first outlined plans for his Fortescue Metals Group, one of Australia’s largest iron ore miners with exports largely made to China, to become a major player in renewable energy at his company’s annual meeting last November.

He further outlined his vision for FFI, which was established last year as part of Dr Forrest’s green energy push, to focus heavily on “green hydrogen” in the ABC’s Boyer lectures in January that were titled “Confessions of a Carbon Emitter”.

In the speeches, he said FMG — which he founded 18 years ago – generated more than two million tonnes of greenhouse gas a year. He said the answer was not to stop iron ore mining but to reduce its carbon emissions and to develop the company into a major renewable energy producer with a strong focus on “green hydrogen”.

In his speech for the seminar on Wednesday, Dr Forrest said FFI, which has been seeded with 10 per cent of the profits of FMG for the 18 months to the end of December, now had more than $1.1bn in assets, with no debt.

He said the company would become a renewable green hydrogen company and also produce green ammonia and other green products.

“They will all come together to crack the code to decarbonising heavy industry, not just in FFI but across Australia,” he said.

FFI is led by West Australian-born metallurgist Julie Shuttleworth, who holds the dual roles of FFI chief executive and deputy chief executive of FMG, reporting to FMG CEO Elizabeth Gaines.

Dr Forrest has committed iron ore producer FMG to become carbon neutral by 2030.

He said he recently became one of the first people to drive one of FMG’s hydrogen fuel cell haul trucks, which is part of the company’s plans to reduce its carbon emissions.

Dr Forrest said renewable green hydrogen was not the only answer in Australia’s push to become a net zero carbon emitter, but its development would “make the biggest difference” in helping Australia reach the target of net zero emissions by 2050.

“We are in a race to save the environment as we know it,” he said. “A race to net zero.”

He said the UN climate change conference in Glasgow in November would be the world’s “last chance to slow, then stop, the planet cooking”. Dr Forrest said green hydrogen was Australia’s “greatest ­national resource”.

He said the global green hydrogen market had the potential to generate revenues of $US12 trillion ($16.5 trillion) a year by 2050 — much larger than any other industry that existed today.

This was 100 times more than the current $150bn export market for Australia’s iron ore industry.

Dr Forrest said FFI would ­create “thousands of jobs and significant economic growth for Australia and the world”.

“Through FFI we will build Australia into the renewable green hydrogen superpower of the world,” he said.

Dr Forrest hit out at claims by the oil and gas sector that it could produce “clean hydrogen”. He said the idea of producing “clean hydrogen” that was still being made from fossil fuels had “as much accuracy as ‘clean coal’ or ‘healthy smoking’.

“Any other colour than renewable green is dirty hydrogen.”

He said it was “critical to guard against” allowing those with vested interests to “draw out a long transition period using fossil fuel hydrocarbons to produce hydrogen.”