Using green ammonia, Fortescue aims for zero carbon emissions by 2030 with fleet investments

Mr Forrest is urging the shipping industry, through IMO, to follow Fortescue’s example and go for green ammonia. He said shipping companies selecting LNG as a transitional fuel, and the banks providing the facilitating finance, are ’green washing’ and delaying the industry’s move to zero emissions.

He is looking to IMO to enable the industry’s move to using green ammonia as soon as possible, and well before the 2050 ambition of the UN entity.

“2050 is too long away,” Mr Forrest said. “Net zero means companies can green wash themselves out of everything and nothing will change.”

He confirmed Fortescue will be ready to produce green ammonia using solar energy to first provide energy to electrolyse water to generate hydrogen, which will be combined with nitrogen to synthesise the green fuel.

“Why go for green ammonia? We can make green hydrogen now and we are on the way to producing green ammonia. It will take a few years, but it will come.”

Mr Forrest was speaking on the deck of ammonia dual-fuel offshore support vessel Green Pioneer while it was docked in east London, UK, on 9 March 2025.

Fortescue acquired this platform supply vessel before it was to be decommissioned and converted it to demonstrate technical operations with ammonia.

Green Pioneer has four Cummins KCA 50 four-stroke engines, two dual-fuel ammonia/diesel, running four Schottel rudderpropellers. It has an advanced ammonia fuel storage and handling system, complex bunkering manifold, safety shut-off and containment systems, and a scrubber to handle unburned ammonia and prevent any escaping.

Ammonia is stored on Green Pioneer at pressure and atmospheric temperatures, then transported and depressurised along the handling route within double-skinned pipes.

Green Pioneer is the world’s first fully classed and flag-approved dual-fuel ammonia-fuelled ship.

In the KCA 50 engines, Fortescue has run up to 70% ammonia and 30% diesel, but on average runs them at 30% ammonia and 70% diesel during demonstrations.

Exhaust from all four engines goes through selective catalytic reduction units to remove NOx, while ammonia slip is recycled through the scrubber.

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