Green hydrogen market just wasn’t there to match Andrew Forrest’s ambitions, says Mark Hutchinson

Mark Hutchinson says Fortescue ‘gave it a good crack and we’re not done’. He will leave the iron ore miner turned green energy hopeful before Andrew Forrest’s hydrogen vision is ever realised.

Andrew Forrest, Fortescue’s executive chair. Picture: Matt Jelonek/Getty Images

Fortescue’s departing green energy boss Mark Hutchinson says “the market basically didn’t turn up” for Andrew Forrest’s clean hydrogen dream.

Breaking his silence a day after Fortescue confirmed his departure as energy division chief executive and restructured its operational responsibilities, Mr Hutchinson said he had no hard feelings. Former ­Argentina rugby international Gus Pichot was promoted to chief executive of growth and energy, and metals executive Dino Otranto will take over hydrogen and global electrification.

Mr Hutchinson’s three-year executive term mirrored hydrogen’s boom-bust fortunes.

Amid hundreds of job losses, Fortescue’s hydrogen progress has stalled and the company has radically downsized its ambitions that had it vying for a role as an energy major.

The former General Electric executive, who was lured out of retirement by Dr Forrest to take on the green energy challenge, said the iron ore miner with will eventually develop a big hydrogen project “sometime before the end of the decade”.

“I’ve loved working there with Andrew. He’s a force of nature,” Mr Hutchinson, known to his boss as “Hutch”, said on Friday.

“I knew it was going to be a tough thing to do. You’re not walking into an established business. This was a brand new kind of experiment and a new business. We gave it a good crack and we’re not done.”

Outgoing energy CEO Mark Hutchinson was recruited out of retirement for the Fortescue green energy experiment. Picture: Ross Swanborough.

Asked where the iron ore miner’s hydrogen ambitions had gone awry, Mr Hutchinson said: “The market basically didn’t turn up. It’s a matter of timing, but it will work.

“We have to get the price down to where it is competitive with grey (hydrogen produce using gas), that’s really clear. And the customers have got to be prepared to take longer term contracts.

“And that’s where the market really didn’t develop as we thought, to be honest. And then governments didn’t really turn up with the subsidies. Although Australia did; Australia actually came through.”

The Albanese government came up with a $2 per kilogram incentive for renewable hydrogen produced starting in 2027 in the 2024-25 budget papers.

Fortescue has stalled on big ticket green energy projects that were planned for Brazil, Norway and Kenya and this month laid off about 90 staff spread across its Queensland electrolyser facility and a hydrogen lab in Perth.

The biggest blow came last year when Dr Forrest formally abandoned his green hydrogen target and Fortescue shed about 700 workers, most of them in Mr Hutchinson’s segment.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and you just hate doing that (cutting jobs). It’s the worst thing you have to do as a leader,” Mr Hutchinson said.

“But you’re looking after the health of the business and the people who stay. People sometimes forget about the other 25,000 who you’re making sure have a future, and a viable business that is going to be there for the for the long term.”

Mr Hutchinson said he would return to living in France but remain a consultant to Dr Forrest and Mr Pichot.

“I’m very happy that he’s (Mr Pichot) going to take that role. I’m 65. I’ve had a go for three years and I’m quite comfortable. It was pretty obvious that it’s going to be a longer play and I was not going to be there forever,” he said.

Fundamentally, Fortescue assumed there was going to be a green premium for hydrogen it produced but it hasn’t materialised.

“So that’s what the team’s working on furiously, getting the cost of hydrogen down,” he said.

Mr Hutchinson was bullish about Fortescue’s push to make green iron, starting with the completion of a pilot plant at the company’s Christmas Creek iron ore mine.

“It makes a tonne of sense. The pilot for the green iron will be done this year and Andrew and the team have big plans to up that significantly.” he said.

Originally published as Green hydrogen market just wasn’t there to match Andrew Forrest’s ambitions, says Mark Hutchinson