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Speaker 1: Joining us now is Mark Hutchinson, CEO of Fortescue Future

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Speaker 1: Industries for a look at Australia's green energy goals. Good

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Speaker 1: morning to you, Mark. I believe you're joining us from Singapore. Now.

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Speaker 1: You know, I know your boss Andrew Forrest quite quite well.

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Speaker 1: I've known him for a number of years and we've

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Speaker 1: had a lot of private conversations as well as on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Television about uh, you know, the diversification of Fortescue

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Speaker 1: beyond its bread and butter, and that is of course

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Speaker 1: iron ore. We've talked about ocean plastics. We've talked about

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Speaker 1: that eco retreat. I guess it is off the ninglu

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Speaker 1: Reef of the West coast of Australia. But I guess

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Speaker 1: his big bet is going to be on what seaborne

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Speaker 1: trade of liquefied hydrogen. I mean it's ambitious, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: and you're expected to spend about eight thirty million dollars

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Speaker 1: this fiscal year f F I your division. How soon

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Speaker 1: does this really start contributing material results? So thanks Stephen.

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Speaker 1: So we do are you doing two things? I think

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Speaker 1: the first thing we're trying to do is is to

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Speaker 1: decombinize the company. I think shows the world we're real

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Speaker 1: and we're gonna take our company that the iron le

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Speaker 1: mining business, to real zero so no emissions by which

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Speaker 1: is quite ambitious. We have over two million tons of

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Speaker 1: emissions globally, so UM, so getting rid of that's gonna

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Speaker 1: really our first first thing to do. And at the

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Speaker 1: same time we want to be a leading developer of

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Speaker 1: green hydrogen around the world, which is quite ambitious. But

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Speaker 1: Andrew Um is absolutely convinced that it's the right thing

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Speaker 1: to do. I've come in four months ago as a

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Speaker 1: CEO and after twenty four years with General Electric actually

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Speaker 1: um and really excited about the mission. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to do this. What's the transition look like? I mean,

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Speaker 1: can we get to hydrogen with a flip of a

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Speaker 1: switch or does there need to be some kind of

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Speaker 1: connective tissue here so to speak. Well, I think there's

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Speaker 1: there's a number of ways to do it. There is,

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Speaker 1: you know, ways to use the existing infrastructure. For example,

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Speaker 1: I think you know, if you think about what really

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Speaker 1: green hydrogen is a kind of a big battery you

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Speaker 1: can transport around the world, so you you can put

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Speaker 1: it into green ammonia or green methane and their existing

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Speaker 1: ways to transport you know, those gases around the world.

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Speaker 1: So I think there's there's a way to do it.

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Speaker 1: I think the interesting question is just the scale of it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what we want to do ultimately is to

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Speaker 1: get rid of fossil fuels completely on this planet, and

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Speaker 1: so there's going to have to be a major shift

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Speaker 1: that happens, you know, over the next ten twenty years, now, Mark,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to play the devil's advocate, but

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Speaker 1: I will. Um. You know, many competitors like Rio Tinto,

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Speaker 1: they say liquefying hydrogen is simply too expensive to ever

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Speaker 1: compete with other clean energy sources. I'm I'm guessing you

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Speaker 1: would argue otherwise. Well, I would tend to agree that

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Speaker 1: it depends where you get the power from, right. So

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Speaker 1: this is why we've placed our bets all over the

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Speaker 1: world and doing projects in in the United States, Brazil,

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Speaker 1: Middle East, North and Africa, Africa itself and Australia. And

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Speaker 1: really the trick at the end of the day is

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Speaker 1: to make sure that the input, which is your power,

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Speaker 1: is of a good value, that you have enough of

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Speaker 1: the margin to actually transport it. So so I'd agree

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Speaker 1: that if you have expensive power it doesn't make a

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Speaker 1: lot of sense. If you can get power which is reasonable,

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Speaker 1: you can absolutely do it. So is that wind, is

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Speaker 1: that solar? Is it geothermal? I mean, are you going

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Speaker 1: to a country where there's a waterfall and you can

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Speaker 1: get hydro electric? I mean, what does it look like?

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Speaker 1: It's all the above actually, so it's your thermal hydro

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Speaker 1: are good places to start because you have real firming power.

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Speaker 1: But the majority of this is going to come from

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Speaker 1: wind and solar, and it's going to be done in

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Speaker 1: places which have abundant space and natural resources. And that's

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Speaker 1: why it kind of it really does over time shift

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Speaker 1: the energy mix around the world and countries in place

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Speaker 1: like Africa become you know, energy superpowers as well as

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Speaker 1: places like Australia. So Mark, we do out of the

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Speaker 1: United States have Joe Biden its Inflation Reduction Act, the

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Speaker 1: i ra A, which provides financial incentives for clean energy

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Speaker 1: products in the US. Uh, you know, it's it's radically

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Speaker 1: changed the global investment pictures. Some would say, how has

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Speaker 1: that changed f FI investment plans and which countries will

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Speaker 1: will end up being the big losers? Yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's amazing. I mean, I think for for the

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Speaker 1: U s T just to leap frog everybody else with

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Speaker 1: the inflation reduction, it was fantastic actually, So we are

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Speaker 1: very very focused on the US because it makes a

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Speaker 1: lot of sense to put investment dollars there, and we're

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Speaker 1: encouraging many countries around the world to do the same,

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Speaker 1: maybe in a different way. I mean, the US market

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Speaker 1: is very much a domestic market. Other markets are going

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Speaker 1: to be exports, so we really focused more infrastructure and

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Speaker 1: getting governments to do that. Actually, I'm in Singapore today.

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Speaker 1: They came out with a tender for green ammonia, which

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Speaker 1: is very exciting. Actually, so you're seeing some governments actually

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Speaker 1: wake up and realize that they've got to get in

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Speaker 1: the game. I think i'd love to tie longer with

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Speaker 1: you about this. I know it's a big subject to

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Speaker 1: squeeze into three minutes, but we're out of time. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much, CEO of Fortescue Future Industries. This is Bloomberg