An Australian firm on the forefront of the worldwide push to make the most of hydrogen has diminished its workforce and lower its manufacturing targets, citing excessive prices for energy wanted to provide the gasoline.
Fortescue, a know-how, power and steel firm headquartered in Perth, on July 17 stated it will lower 700 jobs as a part of a restructuring. The corporate additionally introduced it was shifting its purpose to provide 15 million metric tons yearly of inexperienced hydrogen, or hydrogen from renewable power, past its unique 2030 goal.
Officers in a press release stated the corporate must “continually evolve” in an effort to stick to its enterprise technique whereas producing “maximum value for shareholders.”
Fortescue, lengthy one of many world’s largest producers of iron ore, has turn out to be a world chief within the push for inexperienced hydrogen. Andrew Forrest, the corporate’s chair and founder, has stated that regardless of challenges the group stays “resolute in its commitment to be the world’s leading green technology, energy and metals company with a laser focus on achieving Real Zero by 2030.”
Forrest advised Perth radio station 6PR, “We’re not pulling back, this is something which I really genuinely believe in, I’m a hardcore bloke from the bush, I’m a miner, I’m a practical person, I’ve also had the good fortune to have an education in Australia, so I’ve really looked hard at the science. I just know that going the way we’re going with fossil fuels isn’t an option, the climate is changing dramatically around us.”
Forrest, whose nickname is Twiggy, stated, “It’s been taken as ‘Twiggy is walking back from hydrogen’ … Twiggy isn’t strolling again from hydrogen. The world has to have it. We simply must work out the way to produce it cheaply sufficient.
“We need lower power prices, hydrogen is directly a function of the electricity cost—if the electricity cost is high, then we can’t make hydrogen cheaply enough to compete with fossil fuels,” Forrest stated.
Arizona Facility
Forrest and Fortescue in May of this year celebrated the company’s first green hydrogen facility in the U.S. with a ceremony on the 158-acre Arizona Hydrogen website in Buckeye, Arizona. Fortescue has stated the corporate is investing $550 million into U.S. manufacturing.
“The U.S. has made serious strides in attracting global investment in green hydrogen and decarbonization projects, like Fortescue’s solar and wind-powered Arizona Hydrogen facility. Fortescue is unashamedly a first-mover in this space, the world needs us to move quickly,” Forrest stated throughout the occasion.
The corporate now could be centered on the Arizona challenge, together with three different websites in Australia, Norway, and Brazil.
The Australian authorities has introduced tax incentives for inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing, however Fortescue Power CEO Mark Hutchinson advised the H2 View information group that producing the gasoline “really tough” due to excessive costs for electrical energy.
Fortescue in April of this 12 months opened a 2-GW PEM (proton electrolyte membrane) electrolyser manufacturing unit in Gladstone, Queensland, Australia. A second section of the challenge, a 50-MW inexperienced hydrogen manufacturing facility, has obtained authorities approval.
Job Cuts
Forrest stated job cuts would cut back duplication of roles throughout the enterprise. He stated the layoffs concerned staff in departments corresponding to human sources and authorities relations.
The chairman stated the job cuts had left him “gutted like a fish with a blunt knife, mate.
“We’re up around 15,000 people … 5,000 contractors,” he stated. We’ve let 700 folks go. I simply hate doing it.”
—Darrell Proctor is a senior affiliate editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).
