Forrest pays $309m for battery tech with Williams F1 pedigree

Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue will pay $309 million for the Williams Formula One team’s UK-based engineering offshoot to access battery technology it needs to wean its vast train and truck fleets off diesel.

The iron ore miner announced the purchase on Monday of Williams Advanced Engineering for £164 million ($309 million). Formula 1 boss Frank Williams founded WAE in 2010 and its almost 400 employees are based at the same Oxfordshire campus as the racing team. WAE will be integrated into Fortescue’s clean energy subsidiary Fortescue Future Industries but retain its name.

Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest said the two companies would tackle the hard to abate carbon emissions of heavy industry. “This is the race of our lifetimes – the race to save the planet from cooking,” Dr Forrest said.

“The speed at which we move matters.”

Fortescue chief executive Elizabeth Gaines said the companies began working together in March 2021 to develop a battery system to power mine haul trucks.

“This is about fast charging, lightweight, longer range, we need all of that to make sure that we have a haul truck of the future that is as efficient as a diesel-powered haul truck,” Ms Gaines said.

Half of Fortescue’s carbon emissions, which it has pledged to slash to net-zero by 2030, come from the 400 to 450 million litres of diesel it burns a year to power its mining fleet.

WAE provides batteries for most electric racing cars and bills itself as specialising in high-performance electrification.

The purchase will help allay concerns on how Fortescue could obtain the capability to develop its own clean truck technology. Fortescue’s iron ore rivals, BHP and Rio Tinto, have both partnered with major manufacturers Caterpillar and Komatsu to develop emissions fire trucks rather than attempt to develop the technology in-house.