Fortescue has revealed a 2023–24 financial year (FY24) spent going from strength to strength on all fronts, including production, safety, and sustainability.
The company shipped 191.6 million tonnes of iron ore in FY24, contributing to the third highest earnings in Fortescue’s history and free cash flow of $US5.1 billion ($7.5 billion).
This was achieved in conjunction with the company’s lowest-ever total recordable injury frequency rate of 1.3 across its iron ore operations.
“We celebrated a number of significant milestones including first ore from the Flying Fish and Hall Hub deposits as well as the commissioning of our gaseous and liquid hydrogen plant which is the largest of its kind on a mine site in Australia,” Fortescue Metals chief executive officer Dino Otranto said.
“We will use the hydrogen from this plant for our Green Metal project, which we commenced works on earlier this month.
“We also now have several electric excavators operational across our mine sites, and as a demonstration of our values in action, our aerodrome at Cloudbreak became the first in Australia to have a fully operational, solar-powered airfield lighting system.
“Reflecting our ongoing commitment to delivering shareholder returns, the board has declared a fully franked final dividend of $0.89 per share, bringing total dividends declared for FY24 to $1.97 per share. This represents a 70 per cent payout of net profit after tax.”
Fortescue also unveiled its FY24 sustainability report, which detailed the advances the company has made in its ‘real-zero’ decarbonisation strategy.
“We’re steadfastly committed to the green energy transition and making solid progress towards our goals, while also maintaining the financial discipline that has made Fortescue a success for the past 20 years,” Fortescue Energy chief executive officer Mark Hutchinson said.
“This year, Fortescue took our first energy projects to final investment decision.
“We turned the soil to launch Arizona Hydrogen, our green hydrogen project in the US and started work on Gladstone PEM50, a 50 megawatt green hydrogen project utilising Fortescue’s own electrolyser technology.
“Our board has also agreed to fast-track two more projects, with Holmaneset in Norway and Pecém in Brazil progressing to feasibility phase.
“We officially opened our Gladstone Electrolyser Centre in Queensland earlier this year and started selling our electrolyser systems.
This technology and our other Fortescue Zero products and solutions are key to everything we are doing. Not only are we using them to decarbonise our own mining operations by 2030, we’re also now selling them to other customers, so they too can eliminate emissions.
“These are significant achievements, and we must continue to be focused, move fast, be agile and deliver for our shareholders and our customers.”
Fortescue also announced non-executive director Larry Marshall has been elected to the position of lead independent director for the company, succeeding non-executive director Mark Barnaba.
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