Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest: Business Lessons, Debunking 'Net Zero' & the Future of Green Energy

Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys.

You couldn't probably tell by this fat lump sitting across from me, but when I was a kid, right, I was skinny as a bean. And you know, so your mates just say, well, you're too — you know, that crack joke — say twig. So a twig is going to run around in the shower to get wet, right? And they said, look, you're way too skinny to be a forest. Of course you're way too skinny to even be a tree. You're skinny enough to be a twig, so we're going to call you Twig. And from there came Twiggy, and I've been Twiggy for the last — don't mention it — years.

Look, I chair of the Mindaroo Foundation. It's one of the biggest foundations now in the world, I think, has an equity base of about eight and a half billion, and that's Fortescue stock largely, and we'll migrate our Fortescue stock over to that over time. But it's got really great leadership there now. It's slimmed down, it's got its goals set, got a leadership team locked in place. And I think where I should put my time is where I can make the biggest difference, where I can be useful. I make — guys, I want to have fun, right? I mean, you've got to have fun too, right? But I also want to be useful. I live by two principles: be useful, enjoy it, right? And you don't always enjoy it. You don't always enjoy being useful, but just being useful itself is enjoyable. So I'm switching all my focus onto using Fortescue and my profile to push the industrial world, where the problem is, to go fully green and to just stop all the crap around fossil fuel being our reliable friend. That is such rubbish.

I mean, there's clever players in there. They're called dictators, fascists, oligarchs who send out bots all over the world, AI-driven bots, to lace up messages saying you've got to stay with oil and gas because you know your energy costs are going to go up and your standard of living is going to go down, and oh my God, save yourself, stick with fossil fuel. It's just rubbish. The cheapest form of energy on Earth is renewable. And I'm saying, who put the word 'net' into net zero? Right? Who put that confusing little — what the hell does that mean — word into zero? I know who did it, mate. It was the fossil fuel sector. Jammed it in, right? Otherwise they weren't going to sign up to anything just because they're cooking the planet. I mean, they had to have a conscience, right? So they jammed this word 'net' in, and now you've got all — not to get techy, right — but the planetary boundaries, which like the oceans, the rivers, the trees, which absorb carbon dioxide, basically about 50% of what we emit gets absorbed by nature. That's breaking down, right? Nature said, well, we can only absorb so much. Funny that, right? You can only drink so much alcohol before it knocks you out. So at the same time, this net zero 2050 crap is driving carbon emissions every year to record levels at an accelerating rate. So we just look at that and say, well, that's failing. That's not working.

What's great for energy prices? What's great for energy reliability? What's great for our economy? What's great for our standard of living? What's going to drive up our standard of living by driving down our cost of living? Well, that's renewable energy. And let's just get after it. Let's just stop pulling excuses and get after it, and stop the fossil fuel fear-mongering and replace it. So we call it real zero, not net zero. Real zero is simply stopping burning fossil fuels because there's a beautiful replacement out there. It's called renewable energy, green electricity, and green hydrogen. It's a beautiful replacement. Fortescue's doing it now, and we move on from fossil fuel. We move on from that oligarch-driven uncertainty in the world.

Yeah, because those credits are sold by spivvy little people in suits who never go to nature, who do these calculations. Like up in the Kimberley, which is the most beautiful part of Australia, they burn the Kimberley. They literally fly across the Kimberley and they drop these incineration bombs across the Kimberley. You think, what the hell are they doing that for? I grew up here, mate. I know how stupid it is. And they say, oh, the difference calculated from freaking New York or London or Sydney, the difference calculated between a hot burn and a wildfire and the cool burns we're making gives you a mathematical carbon credit. The fact is, turning the Kimberley into a desert — don't worry about that — it gives you this mathematically driven carbon credit. So suckers come along who need it, like, you know, big oil and gas companies or big retail companies. So they buy these credits, and they're fake. They're probably doing more damage to the environment than good. And we calculate that at least 85% of carbon credits are fake.

And banks love them because they trade them. Financial institutions love them because they trade them. They invented the bloody things with the oil and gas sector. Oil and gas sector love them because it means they can go net zero per barrel of oil. That means they're not changing a thing. They're just going to buy these fake credits. So there's two criminals in the room here with net zero. One is carbon credits, because they're driven by the financial sector and the oil and gas sector. And the second is this thing called carbon sequestration. I capture the carbon and put it down a hole. Now, that's literally an old lie waiting for the next idiot, normally a politician, to come along. You know, ah, how old are you, sir? Well, I'm 40 or 50. Ever heard of carbon sequestration? No, it's a great idea. It's a new idea. It's a new idea. You should get after it. We can still burn oil and gas and we can put all the carbon down the hole. What a great idea. And the politician doesn't say, has it failed before? He doesn't ask that question. Has it failed for 50 freaking years? Didn't I say, yeah, what a great idea, let's put it down the hole. That's a sound bite for radio. It doesn't work. You see, Wheatstone, Western Australia, it doesn't work. Norway, one of the biggest oil and gas producers in the world, it doesn't work. You know, you've got Saudi Arabia saying we're going to make it work. Well, I've heard we're going to make it work now for 50 freaking years. It's like the tobacco industry, mate. They sold the lie that tobacco doesn't cause cancer for 52 years. So we've just got to get through. There's one way to stop oil and gas carbon emissions, and that's stop burning oil and gas. That's it. Period.

Okay, let's look at the really big businesses, right? Transport trucks — we have green hydrogen trucks being made now. We have battery electric trucks operating in the Pilbara. We have hydrogen trains, like these are the biggest trains in the world. That's not farting around, right? They're 35,000 tons on their back, right? Green ammonia, which is basically a carrier of hydrogen. Green electricity. We have a ship called the Green Pioneer running off green hydrogen. So when people say to me, I can't work it, Twiggy — well, dear, have you tried? Oh no, I haven't tried. Just says it can't work. No, I said, mate, honestly, the problem here is that your company can make it work. The problem here is you. You say you can't make it work, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Chief Executive of big company. You're correct, you can't make it work. Now get off the stage and let in some young punk who will make it work, because the technology is there. BHP's proven it. There's technology all over the world. It's getting better. And these muppets say, oh, we're going to wait for it to get better again. Well, that just means do nothing, right? But if you've got a pulley system already invented, use a pulley system. If you've got a wheel already invented, use a wheel. Yeah, the wheel's going to get better, roller bearings, whatever. But you've got the tech right now. So put wheels on your car. Let's go.

Okay, so let's start at the high level. So zero, that word you use, Fortescue Future Industries, zero just means no burning fossil fuel. When you use the word net zero or real zero, obviously one is, what the hell is net? And the other is, yeah, we all understand what real is. Real is just stopping burning fossil fuel. Now net says, well, we can use carbon sequestration. By the way, you know, any kind of carbon emissions is bad. So you've got to stop eating food. Sorry about that. No breakfast, lunch, or dinner for the rest of your life. So the oil and gas sector conflates food industries, agricultural sectors, with oil and gas. It's complete crap. Oil and gas and coal is what's caused global warming. Let's just get rid of that because we can. So we use Fortescue, this massive industrial company. It's the highest return on equity company in Australian history, right? It's the number one company in Australia's history. It started life risky, taking a few bets, a fair chunk of debt, which we paid down. And now, you know, we have more cash on the balance sheet than debt, and we pay high dividends, and we're a poster child. So when this huge industrial company called Fortescue says we're going to real zero, we're going to stop burning fossil fuel, big industry doesn't really have a leg to stand on because this company knows business, this company knows industry, this company knows how to cut costs. And you cut costs where you can, and that's your energy cost. So we currently burn, or used to, around a billion liters of diesel a year, or equivalent, a billion. Now as that falls, we save hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. When we eliminate it in the next few years with battery electric trucks, hydrogen trains, etc., we'll save around a billion US a year. Yeah, just because we're not buying that stupid oligarch-priced fossil fuel, right? You know, and whichever way we cut it, Australia shouldn't have its energy cost pegged to what happens in Russia and Ukraine or Saudi Arabia. That's not our bet. We should make our own energy. We're proving you can do it. And you know, just the litmus test: who is the last, most efficient iron ore producer in the world? BHP. Yeah. Who is — is every iron ore company in the world experiencing accelerating costs? Yes, except one. It's got falling costs. Fortescue. So you've got to put that down. There's the litmus test. That's what I want to happen in every home, in every business across Australia.