Australia’s Fortescue expands decarbonisation plans

The company will no longer purchase carbon emission allowances during the current fiscal year

Australian miner Fortescue Metals has announced it will no longer buy carbon credits from this financial year, reports Kallanish.

Funds allocated for these purposes will go towards its own decarbonisation plan to achieve zero emissions by 2030.

The company will focus on the decarbonization of its activities, the creation of new opportunities in the production of ecologically clean steel, and also on the development of a global business of ecological energy and green hydrogen to replace fossil fuels.

According to the CEO of Fortescue Metals Dino Otranto, the company’s long-term goal is to achieve zero emissions in Scope 1 and 2 by 2030. At the same time, the short-term goal is to reach the peak of emissions by the 2025/2026 financial year, which is associated with the appearance of a new mine. It is then expected to drop significantly in the 2027/2028 financial year as Fortescue invests in green technologies and renewables. This will make it possible to reach the zero level of emissions before the planned deadline.

During the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 financial years, the company, in particular, plans to:

• complete its first 100MW solar power plant, as well as start the construction of two additional transmission lines with a total length of 243 km, which, once completed, will connect all Fortescue mines into a single power grid;
• make final investment decisions on three additional solar power plants, which means a commitment to build more than 1 GW of solar capacity, and on the construction of a large wind farm;
• invest an additional several hundred million dollars in the design and development of zero-emission solutions needed for decarbonization, including a fleet of battery-powered and green-hydrogen trucks, as well as electric excavators;
• develop a zero-emission rail solution for transporting iron ore from the mines to the port.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Fortescue Metals Group in the 2022/2023 financial year (ended June 30) increased shipments of iron ore by 2% y/y – up to 192 million tons, which was the upper limit of the tentative forecast. Iron ore production decreased by 5% y/y in this period – up to 217.9 million tons.

Also, at the end of 2022 Fortescue Metals signed the agreement with the Japanese Mitsubishi Corp. and European steel producer Voestalpine for the creation of an industrial prototype plant for the production of direct reduction iron (DRI).