Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries, the renewables arm of major iron ore producer Fortescue Metals Group, has halted its interest in investing in hydrogen projects in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

The company had been working closely with senior Russian government officials on potential projects and had agreed to join a working group to help drive the development of the hydrogen sector in the country, although it had not announced any firm investments.

“We have been trying to work with Russia for some time, but we have made incredibly clear that you just have no excuse to go and invade another country,” Andrew Forrest, chairman of parent company Fortescue Metals, told Australian media. “The world moving to a full green energy future will not be based on who has the gas or the oil. This time it will be based on the best leadership, so Russia is looking like coming last in that race.”

Moscow last year approved a hydrogen strategy to 2050, with a goal of capturing up to 20pc of the international hydrogen market and an export target of up to 50mn t/yr.

It is developing nine domestic technologies and implementing hydrogen-exporting projects, including developments to produce the fuel in the Kola peninsula and Sakhalin, deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said earlier this month.

“We have made it incredibly clear that you just have no excuse to go and invade another country” Forrest, Fortescue

Forrest, said to be Australia’s richest person, was speaking at the launch of a 2GW/yr electrolyser plant in Gladstone, Queensland. The A$114mn ($83mn) plant is stage one of a project to develop a green manufacturing base producing a range of technologies including batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.

The first electrolysers manufactured at the facility are expected in 2023 and earmarked for a proposed green hydrogen and ammonia plant being developed by Fortescue at Gibson Island.

Fortescue is targeting the production of 15mn t/yr of green hydrogen by 2030. Forrest called for Australia to achieve greater energy independence through the expansion of renewables. “We must create our own energy from the wind and the sun, and build a new ecosystem of green industries around it that is fed purely by 100pc renewable electricity,” he told an event at the weekend. “Green hydrogen and green ammonia can fully replace every form of fossil fuel and the employment demand will be greater than what we have, so those worried about their jobs need not.”

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Author: Stuart Penson