The Australian mining company Fortescue announced this Monday, after a meeting with senior authorities of the Argentine Government, that until 2028 it will invest US $ 8.4 billion in the South American country to develop a green hydrogen production project.
The announcement was made within the framework of the COP26 climate summit held in Glasgow (United Kingdom), where the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, met with the top executives of the Australian company.
The announced disbursements will go to the so-called Pampas project, which Fortescue will develop in the town of Sierra Grande, in the southern Argentine province of Río Negro, where the company has already started prospecting for the production of green hydrogen on an industrial scale.
“This is, due to its size, its numbers and its transformative nature, the most important international investment announced in Argentina in this 21st century. It is also an investment that is founding a new industry, that of green hydrogen”, Highlighted the Argentine Minister of Productive Development, Matías Kulfas.
In a press conference with company representatives, Kulfas stressed that this project “puts Argentina at the forefront ”, since the country “It will be among the main countries in the world producing this new fuel of the future.”
According to official sources, the goal is for Río Negro to become a global green hydrogen export pole by 2030, with a production capacity of 2.2 million tons per year, which is equivalent, for example, to almost 10% of the electrical energy consumed by Germany in one year.
Stages of the project
The president of Fortescue Future Industries for Latin America, Agustín Pichot, former captain of the Argentine rugby team, highlighted that Argentina is among the five most important projects of the Australian company in the world.
The survey that the company started seeks to analyze the quantity and quality of the winds, the main energy source for the project that will use desalinated seawater for the production of hydrogen.
Once it has been determined that the wind resource and other factors are satisfactory, public consultations and procedures for the construction of the project will begin.
According to official sources, the pilot stage, with investments of about US $ 1,200 million, will begin in 2022 and end in 2024 and its objective is to produce about 35,000 tons of green hydrogen, equivalent energy to satisfy 250,000 homes.
In the first production stage, with an investment of US $ 7.2 billion and which will last until 2028, some 215,000 tons of green hydrogen will be produced, the equivalent energy capacity to cover the electricity consumption of 1.6 million homes.
The entire project will create 15,000 direct direct jobs and between 40,000 and 50,000 indirect ones.
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