Fortescue Future Industries’ so-called ‘chairman’ Andrew Forrest is a man on a green hydrogen mission

The Bull is becoming increasingly perplexed by Cottesloe green warrior Andrew Forrest, the purported chairman of Fortescue Future Industries. We say purported chairman because lots of guff recently from the self-proclaimed green hydrogen group bestows that noble title upon Forrest. It is bestowed despite Forrest, who you might know as chairman of FFI parent company Fortescue Metals Group, not being a director of any Australian company bearing the FFI name. Instead, the great man leaves such mundane director duties to his minions at the diesel-guzzling FMG and to the likes of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, the so-called FFI Australian chairman. Yet a lack of any “official” board role at FFI did not stop Forrest’s supporters releasing a bizarre video on Twitter this week where Forrest was introduced as “billionaire ... chairman of FFI .... carbon emitter”. (See snippets from the video in the player above) Filmed in a luxurious dining room and resembling a Mad Men parody, Forrest thanks the “fossil fuel sector ” for the great ride before proselytising that “carbon dioxide climate chaos is going to render humanity extinct” if left unchecked. “On the other hand, the world is going to need so much energy — green hydrogen is the fuel of the future,” St Twiggy said. “I’m already in — you’re not going to let me take it all are you? “Come on, challenge me.” Vision is mostly OPM Andrew Forrest’s claim in his visionary video that he’s “already in” to green hydrogen is rather rich considering more than 63 per cent of Fortescue Metals Group is owned by other people. While most investors were attracted to FMG being the third force in iron ore, the company’s annual meeting was this week dominated by unproven green hydrogen aspirations of the great chairman. FMG shareholders were assured that no more than 10 per cent of their annual net profits would be going to fund FFI. Given that assurance, let’s now do some math to compare hype and reality. One former HOTT operative estimated this week that FMG and FFI would need $195 billion to make good on all of Forrest’s green energy promises. Based on net profit forecasts for FMG, there will be less than $825m to fund Forrest’s vision in 2021-22 — or about one-two hundredth of the deals so far touted. And of that 2021-22 funding, a bee’s whisker of over $300m will come from the Forrest clan’s share of FMG’s net profits. This is just 0.15 per cent of the deals touted so far by the great man and FFI. So he can meet his own FFI video exhortation of being able to “look your kids straight in the eye”, maybe the multi-billionaire should fund his green hydrogen vision directly from his $21b-plus fortune. DMIRS gets kicking The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety is spending $150,000 of taxpayers’ money on “communication skills training” in its latest bright idea. This comes less than three months after the unpronounceable acronym was busted for plotting “bland” media responses to horrific rape allegations by FIFO workers at BHP and FMG mine sites. DMIRS awarded the tender this week to Perth corporate training and development outfit Alive and Kicking. But the Department’s spin doctors insist the expensive training is strictly for frontline customer service staff and not the media team. Shame, they seriously need it. Read more from the Bull in Herd on the Terrace inside the business pages of Saturday’s The West Australian, or check out more gossip from WA’s business community here.

Fortescue Future Industries’ so-called ‘chairman’ Andrew Forrest is a man on a green hydrogen mission

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