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Distributed widely via AAP | Australia risks a catastrophic halving of its iron ore export revenues from a failure to invest in the emerging green iron industry, a think tank warns. In a peer-reviewed report aimed at Treasurer Jim Chalmers, the Climate Energy Finance think tank warns Australia will lose its global lead in iron ore, with devastating economic consequences, unless it quickly offers incentives to kickstart green iron exports. Australia’s top export iron ore could double to more than $250 billion annually if it went green and switching to exporting green iron could also reduce global emissions by one billion tonnes per year, the report found. Read more

Top global iron ore exporter Australia could lose as much as half its revenue from the sector if it fails to start producing green iron fast enough, as other countries start making steel using renewable energy, a think tank said on Friday. To avoid what could be “devastating economic consequences”, Australia needs “a suite of strategic national-interest policy and investment incentives to kickstart a green iron export industry”, the report said. Read more

Independent clean energy think tank Climate Energy Finance has called for a $20 billion Future Fund mandate to enable renewables-powered processing of green metals and for measures to accelerate investment in firmed renewable energy at scale. CEF Net Zero Transformation Analyst and lead author on the report Matt Pollard said Australia’s world leading iron ore producers have extracted huge returns on investment as China prioritised expansion of its steel mills. Read more

Australia accounts for 56% of seaborne iron ore trade, according to government figures. To avoid what could be “devastating economic consequences”, Australia needs “a suite of strategic national-interest policy and investment incentives to kickstart a green iron export industry”, the report said. “In the global race to green iron exports, Australia has numerous competitive advantages – such as abundant and cheap renewables – that we must capitalize on,” said Marilyne Crestias at Clean Energy Investor Group (CEIG). Read more

Australia, the world’s largest iron ore exporter, could see its export revenues plummet by 50 per cent unless it makes an urgent shift to green iron production, according to a new report by think tank Climate Energy Finance. The report, Green Metal Statecraft: Forging Australia’s Green Iron Industry, warns that as global steelmakers transition to low-emission practices, demand for traditional, high-emission iron ore is likely to fall sharply. This shift could cause Australia’s $138 billion iron ore revenue to halve, affecting the nation’s economy and global market standing. Read more

CEF published a major report on the electrification and decarbonisation of the Pilbara in August 2024, that argued that AREH could be a key part of the solution. Tim Buckley and colleague CEF Net Zero Transformation Analyst Matt Pollard, believe that AREH has the potential to act as a model for the Pilbara in how private enterprise can effectively collaborate with state and federal governments to accelerate large-scale renewable energy projects. ‘Renewable energy hubs at the scale of AREH can provide significant cost advantages over distributed, smaller-scale renewable energy projects,’ they say. Read more

“Australia is never going to be able to compete on our own against the Chinese, the robotics, the artificial intelligence, the scale of their manufacturing, their phenomenal investments in research and development, all of that says we’ll never catch them,” says Tim Buckley. “But we don’t have to catch them; we can partner with them”. Read more

As China’s construction slump and steel glut bite, the chairman of government-owned China Baowu Group, the world’s largest steelmaker, has warned China’s steel sector will enter a “severe winter” more challenging than even the major downturns experienced during the GFC of 2008. This spells trouble for iron ore. Australia is the world’s largest iron ore exporter, and it is our number one commodity export, with over 80% going to China. The benchmark iron ore price has fallen below $US100/tonne, while prices for metallurgical coal used in steelmaking have dropped by a third to US$202/t in just 2 months. Read more

CWP Global has revealed that the BP-majority owned 26GW Australian Renewable Energy Hub Project (AREH), located in the iron-ore rich Pilbara region of Western Australia, has had its Major Project Status renewed by the Australian government. Critical to the success of the project will be federal and WA government support for Pilbara Green Link transmission lines to enable the mining sector’s best use of one of the most scaleable renewable energy resources anywhere in the country, CWP added. A recent report by Climate Energy Finance estimates that Australia has the potential to double the value of its annual iron exports to AUS$250bn. Read more

Australian think tank Climate Energy Finance (CEF) published a report on how accelerating the electrification and decarbonisation of the Pilbara region would help the country achieve its green export goals. Called “Superpowering-Up,” the report was written by Matt Pollard, net-zero transformation analyst at CEF, and Tim Buckley, a director at the organisation. It was made available to the public on August 13. One of the report’s main findings is that single common-user grid infrastructure in the Pilbara area would be a key catalyst in speeding up decarbonisation in the region, which is the “engine room” of Australia’s resource sector. Read more

Tim Buckley, co-author of Climate Energy Finance’s SUPERPOWERING-UP report, speaks on WA radio channels broadcasted across Perth, Kimberley, Pilbara and regional areas, discussing the importance of accelerating decarbonisation to supply China with green iron as it increased its exports to Europe under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Read more

Concerning the failure to decarbonise in Australia’s Pilbara region, Tim Buckley, Director of Climate Energy Finance Corporation highlights, the region’s enormous natural resources and potential for renewable energy. Despite this, he points out that the remoteness of the Pilbara — along with the lack of coordinated action from local major companies such as Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO), BHP (ASX: BHP), and others who have committed to their shareholders to decarbonise — impede progress in this space. For Buckley, the challenge lies in the lack of scale, lack of logistics, and lack of planning, which eventually result in challenges at a systems-level. Read more