The Fortescue Ltd (ASX: FMG) share price is up more than 2% after the ASX iron miner revealed promising progress with its electric mining vehicles.
Electric Excavator
The miner revealed its recently-deployed electric excavator has reached a significant milestone since it became operational – one million tonnes.
In the last three months, it has been running at partial capacity while the site team familiarised themselves with the new piece of equipment.
It’s now operating at full speed, leading to its performance steadily improving with the electric excavator outperforming its diesel equivalent “at times”. The site team are now focused on delivering consistent performance.
The excavator currently operates partially off solar and is powered by a 6.6kV substation and over 2km of high voltage trailing cable.
Why is Fortescue doing this?
The company is committed to eliminate emissions across its mining operations. The intention is that all electrified mining equipment will eventually be 100% powered by renewable electricity. I think this will be supportive for the Fortescue share price in the long-term.
Roadrunner
The ASX mining share also gave an update on its 240-tonne battery electric haul truck prototype called roadrunner.
The first stage of testing roadrunner saw the battery power system exceed performance expectations. Those tests include laps around its testing track and ramp tests with hill starts, while carrying 231 tonnes of iron ore.
Management commentary
The Fortescue Metals CEO, Dino Otranto said:
This is such an exciting milestone for Fortescue and our decarbonisation journey. Importantly, we’ve been able to achieve this while maintaining our high safety standards.
We will have two additional electric excavators commissioned by the end of April. Once we decarbonise our entire fleet, around 95 million litres of diesel will be removed from our operations every year, or more than a quarter of a million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
It’s milestones such as these that are bridging the gap between zero emissions power systems and diesel fleets, and proving to the world that decarbonisation is possible.
Final thoughts on the Fortescue share price
The Fortescue share price is recovering following the rebound of the iron ore price in the past ten days.
I don’t think this is the best time to invest in Fortescue, even though I think it has a compelling future. I’d rather buy when the iron ore price is lower than it is, which could mean a lower Fortescue share price.
Until then, there are other ASX dividend shares I’d rather buy for my portfolio.
