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Green project feels heat

Renewable energy land battle as FMG eyes Gascoyne for exploration

DANIELLE LE MESSURIER

A renewable energy land grabin the Gascoyne between the Andrew Forrest-chaired Fortes cue Metala Group and mineral exploration company Province - Resources is turning into a bat tle of the billionaire backers.

Fortescue has in recent months applied for dozens of exploration licences surround ing Province and Total Eren's green hydrogen project, smap

Leadership

ping up huge areas of land in what is considered to be prime renewables territory.

The HyEnergy project near Carnarvon, which has world- class solar and wind resources could produce SGW of renewa ble energy each year for use locally and for export. It's a potential 12.111ha development site for HyEnergy

The project would be owned in a 50-50 arrangement by Province and its France-based partner.

Total Eren, when completed. Total Eren is considered a renewable energy leader, with more than 3.5GW of power plants worldwide. It is partly owned by global energy bebe moth TotalEnergies, which holds about a 30 per cent stake

Asked whether Province was concerned about Hy Energy being bosed in by Fortescue tenements, chief cutive David Franom said Province had been able to lay claim to the land

it required as first movers "FMG came much later (missed out on the best generative area) and penged the rest of WA as see ond place," he said in a response over email "We have Total Eren who

are 34 per cent owned by TotalE

nergies (1U50.25 trillion annual

reventie) as partners who are

mach much larger than FMG." Filings by TotalEnergies show the company in fact enjoyed SUS40 billion c5192b0) sales reve

mue in 2020 and $US200b-plus in both 2019 and 2018. Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines confirmed it had submitted exploration toence applications over tenements in the Gascoyne but said there was no time frame yet for exploration activities

Mr Forrest wants to produce massive amounts of green hydrogen from wind and solar farms in the Pilbars through clean energy subsidiary Fortes cue Future Industries.