- The first of Andrew Forrest’s giant iron ore mines in the Pilbara is now operating with an entirely electric fleet of huge excavators, as testing continues nearby on the first of its in-house 6 MW fast chargers, likely the biggest in the world.
Fortescue announced on Friday, in the release of its quarterly production report, that it now has 18 electric excavators operating across its mine sites in the Pilbara. The 7-strong excavator fleet at the Flying Fish iron ore mine is now fully electric.
The company is aiming to reach “real zero” by 2030, which means it won’t be burning gas or diesel for its power and mining needs. It uses about 700 million litres of diesel a year. Each excavator consumes around one million litres of diesel a year.
“Ongoing volatility in global diesel prices only reinforces the commercial case for eliminating fossil fuels from our operations,” CEO Dino Otranto said in a statement. “Rather than simply absorbing higher fuel costs, we’re investing to remove that exposure altogether and strengthen our long-term cost position.”
The company has also been trialling other electric mining equipment, including 150-tonne water carriers – critical for keeping down dust – along with electric bulldozers, graders, and loaders. These are being built by Chinese equipment supplier XCMG and will soon be trialled at the mine sites.
The biggest saving will come in the form of the near 300 or so giant electric haul trucks, each weighing around 240 tonnes and equipped with massive batteries.
These are being supplied by XCMG and Liebherr, and will take longer to arrive in numbers, probably around 2028 or 2029 and will likely be one of the final pieces in the real zero puzzle.
The green grid that will be delivering green electrons to charge these massive batteries is expected to be completed by early 2028 with some 1.4 GW of solar, nearly 1 GW of wind, and 4.5 gigawatt hours of grid scale batteries.
Fortescue has been developing its own in-house 6 megawatt fast chargers, and the first two of these heavy vehicle fast chargers are being commissioned at the Eliwana mine, about 35 kms up the road from Flying Fish.
Fortescue CEO Dino Otranto recently visited XCMG in China to try out a range of prototypes. “They do exist,” he said in a LinkedIn video.
Sign up for The Driven’s free daily newsletter and get the latest EV news and analysis delivered straight to your inbox.
