[3] The company has holdings of more than 87,000 km2 in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, making it the largest tenement holder in the state,[4] larger than both BHP and Rio Tinto.

[16] The train load out (TLO) facility at Firetail was commissioned in November 2012 and the first ore was transported on the Fortescue Hamersley Rail Line in December 2012.

[19] Scheduled to open 2022, the Iron Bridge mine, located 145 kilometres south of Port Hedland, is projected to produce 22 million tonnes of high-grade 67% magnetite per annum.

[25] In October 2018, however, Atlas was acquired by Redstone Resources, a fully owned subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting,[26] and delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange on 21 November 2018.

[27] In February 2023 Fortescue Metals Group inked in an agreement to develop iron ore at Belinga in north-eastern Gabon with a road and railway to an existing port of Owendo.

In 2017 Fortescue announced they were looking to diversify their portfolio by exploring for metals and minerals in South America and other parts of Australia.

[34] The current operating fleet is: In 2020, Fortescue Future Industries was created to produce energy in several countries, starting with the 60 MW solar farm at its Chichester Hub.

[35] In October 2021, Fortescue Future Industries and Plug Power Inc. announced a joint venture to build a green hydrogen equipment manufacturing facility in Aldoga, Queensland.

[36][37] Also in October 2021, Fortescue Future Industries and Incitec Pivot announced a feasibility study for a new ammonium nitrate production plant in Brisbane.

The plant would use PEM electrolysers to generate hydrogen to produce ammonium nitrate, mainly used as fertiliser and as a component in explosives, replacing the conventional manufacturing process which uses natural gas.

[38][39] In November 2021 it was announced that Fortescue Future Industries would build a plant in Río Negro Province, Argentina, that initially in 2024 would produce 600 MW of green hydrogen a year, rising to 15GW by 2030.

As part of this acquisition, Fortescue and WAE will jointly develop the world first, zero emission electric Infinity Train that charges itself using the Earth's gravitational force.

Although an initial ruling by Justice John Gilmour[45] in 2009 found Forrest hadn't acted in a misleading or deceptive manner,[46] Chief Justice Patrick Keane and judges Arthur Emmett and Raymond Finkelstein of the Federal Court of Australia[47] overturned this decision in 2011, finding that FMG and its chairman and CEO, Andrew Forrest, had engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct and breached the continuous disclosure provisions in the Corporations Act, 2001,[48] by claiming to have binding contracts with China.

[52] In his judgement, Justice Honour concluded that Fortescue's releases "correctly represented that there was an agreement, and that it was in the view of the parties binding from the time of board approval".

However, the relationship deteriorated in 2007 when the Yindjibarndi people discovered that FMG had the legal authority to destroy their sacred sites and was doing so during the mine's construction.

The YAC also failed in its initial Federal Court appeal of that decision last year, and the state government issued the mining licenses to FMG in late November 2010.

In March 2011, FMG was accused of supporting a break-off group[59][60] to divide the local Yindjibarndi community during negotiations for access to traditional Yinjibarndi land for the planned $8.5 billion Solomon Hub project.

While the law firm admitted FMG has put compensation money up, it said it was insufficient in comparison with the profits that will be made from this mine on the client's traditional land, as well as the royalty (tax) amounts that have been paid to non-Aboriginal people.

A hearing was held in Roebourne and at a sacred site on Yindjibarndi country, called Bangkangarra, located in the Hamersley Range, in the Pilbara.

[64] Yindjibarndi elder Stanley Warrie wept as he directed Federal Court judge Stephen Burley to observe the red land, now marred by Fortescue’s large metal pipes on the outskirts of its iron ore pit.

The court then visited another location—a rock shelter with evidence of occupation dating back 35,000 years—situated beneath an iron ore haulage road.

[67] Fortescue maintains that it does not owe compensation to the Yindjibarndi people, arguing that the responsibility lies with the state of WA, which granted the tenements.

This was conveyed to the court during a week-long hearing at the town hall in Roebourne, the same location where negotiations between the Yindjibarndi people and Andrew Forrest broke down in 2011.

[68] In August 2013, CEO Nev Power announced the company had achieved its target of awarding $1 billion in contracts to Aboriginal business by the end of 2013.

[70] Fortescue chairman Andrew Forrest told The Guardian: "The depth of what the Indigenous people have achieved and the change in direction they're taking is really historic.