Do we like them?

Do we like Fortescue?

Iron ore miner in Western Australia's Pilbara, pushing into green energy and hydrogen. Based in Perth.

Our score: 5 out of 10. Mixed. It is serious about cutting its own emissions, but a court found it destroyed Yindjibarndi heritage places, and that weighs heavily. We'd hold off.

Fortescue is the Pilbara iron ore miner that Andrew Forrest built. These days it also talks up green energy and hydrogen. Forrest is chair and Dino Otranto is the CEO. The company says it is reviewing the timelines of its green energy project pipeline because of market conditions and policy uncertainty.

The big drama is Yindjibarndi land. On 12 May 2026 the Federal Court ordered Fortescue to pay about A$150m in native title compensation for its Solomon Hub mine. The court found 124 of 240 identified heritage places were destroyed. The group says Fortescue has mined there since 2012 with no agreement.

Fortescue accepts the Yindjibarndi are entitled to compensation. It had argued for a maximum of A$8.1m and says it has paid the sum ordered. Both the Yindjibarndi corporation and the WA government have lodged appeals. Reuters' headline says the corporation is seeking A$1.3 billion.

On the climate side, it aims to remove fossil fuels from its Pilbara iron ore operations by 2030. It has started building solar and wind projects and commissioning battery-electric locomotives. It has also said it will stop buying carbon offsets and put that money into decarbonisation. Otranto says it will meet the target.

We'd give it a middling score. The decarbonisation effort looks real and ahead of most miners. A court finding that heritage sites were destroyed on a community's land without an agreement is hard to look past, and the appeals are still running.