Fortescue to Supply Green Hydrogen to U.K. After Deal With JCB

(Bloomberg) -- Australia’s Fortescue Future Industries will become the biggest supplier of green hydrogen to the U.K. after signing a deal with construction equipment company JC Bamford Excavators Ltd. and distributor Ryze Hydrogen.

The deal, signed on the eve of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, unites two of the industrial world’s highest-profile billionaires, JCB founder and chairman Anthony Bamford and Australia’s Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. founder Andrew Forrest. Jo Bamford, Anthony’s son, is chairman of Ryze.

The agreement could bolster Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s case that the U.K. can make good on its target for net-zero emissions by 2050. And for Forrest, the deal goes a small way to helping his company meet an annual target of 15 million metric tons of green hydrogen production by 2030, rising to 50 million tons in the following decade.

“Our agreement signals the first major shift in the global commercial landscape from fossil fuels towards the real, practical, implementable solution that is green hydrogen,” Forrest said in a statement Sunday. Some of the production will eventually be in the U.K.

Forrest, who told Bloomberg TV this month that hydrogen would rival coal as a key part of steelmaking within a decade, has set a 2040 net-zero target for Fortescue’s customers. 

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