PRL Media/news, page-3809

Let's look at what's actually happening with Fortescue without all the big media sensationalist headlines and the anti green opposition using any opportunity to rip green energy apart. Forrest is in no way walking away from Hydrogen/green energy.

The actual FMG company announcement earlier in the week stated this:

"The Company has undergone a period of rapid growth and transition, and as part of bringing together Metals and Energy into One Fortescue, initiatives are being implemented to simplify its structure, remove duplication and deliver cost efficiencies. The Company must continually evolve to ensure it remains lean, is best positioned to deliver on its strategy and generate the maximum value for shareholders. As part of this, approximately 700 people from across Fortescue’s global operations will be offered redundancies, with that process to be finalised by the end of July 2024".

Let's add to this more information from the actual company and not journalists running an agenda. Forrest was directly interviewed on Thursday night on the 7:30 report to go into more exact details. Here are some interesting points from the interview.

-Worldwide energy prices have increased significantly. The fossil fuel industry has been able to dictate this because we have relied on it.
-We need to firstly get more upstream green energy into the market. The high green electricity price is causing delays in getting the downstream (hydrogen market) going.
- FMG has their name to many green hydrogen projects across the world, it's more important to make sure that we get a few projects actually running. Essentially allocating resources to a few specific projects rather than mass rollout of lots of projects across the world which would be highly expensive. (Essentially starting with the most profitable places to begin with. FMG put their name to many projects to do DD on which ones they believe most of their resources should go towards)
- FMG has now reduced staff numbers to put this money into upstream facilities to bring down the green electricity costs.
- Australia is abundant with resources to produce enormous amounts of green energy/electricity and producing/selling this can be larger than the iron ore export industry.
-Gladstone will continue to be an electrolyser maker.

FMG is simply now focusing on their best project ideas. Energy costs are enormous and it's simply unfeasible for them to try and get every project they have their name to up and running.

It is important to note that a lot of FMG green hydrogen produced in Australia will be used for their own iron ore, metal making projects. They are looking at value adding in Australia.

So who will be the first Australian exporter of hydrogen/green ammonia?
Lots of domestic use projects being spoken of. But who is going to mass scale and sell to the world?

What does this mean for PRL?
- PRL have the ideal location/site to maximise the natural sources of green energy. You are not going to find a better position to get maximum green energy power and have a town close by to house staff. It is abundant. It is also situated perfectly for export to Asia and Europe.
- To produce the targets we have stated, it will have a large upstream cost. There's no way around this for any green hydrogen project. But with government support, financing support and partners you aren't going to find a better spot to produce and export green energy.
- It's one thing to have the ideal location, but you need buy in from all stakeholders to make it happen. Plenty of companies cannot get this. PRL have the Shire of Carnarvon, Gascoyne development commission, pastoralists and indigenous communities all strongly publicly endorsing this. The last council meeting they spoke about an official statement that the shire and Gascoyne development commission were producing to endorse the Hyenergy project to government. They are pushing this. Government is slow, and any new rollout of of new land tenure legislation they get nervous about. But if the government truly wants a green energy future, green energy land tenures are going to be something they have to deal with more and more. Once we get the land tenure, we know our project has a future. It's such an important and large milestone.

Once we get government approvals, our ability for really strong engagement with everyone from partners, financing, off takers will be totally changed. We will be able to say not "if we build" but "when we build".