Tycoon says Singapore wants green fuel, not giant power cable

AUSTRALIAN billionaire Andrew Forrest sees an opportunity to export green fuels to Singapore after the collapse of a A$30 billion (S$27.7 billion) project to supply the country with clean electricity from Australia.

Developer Sun Cable entered voluntary administration last week amid disputes between investors – including Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder of software company Atlassian – over the viability of sending the city-state solar power via a 4,200 km-long cable from Australia’s Northern Territory.

Those plans, which had already drawn industry scepticism, are no longer feasible, with uncertainty over demand and costs spiralling, Forrest said in an interview in Davos on Monday (Jan 16).

He added that authorities and industries in Singapore “don’t know” why the project wanted to send them “all these electrons” when what they have “asked the world for – and no one’s giving (them) – is molecules”.

He said the sentiment among them was: “We want green hydrogen, we want green, synthetic methane, we want green ammonia.”

Singapore is one of the major global shipping hubs that are responding to decarbonisation with ambitions to boost trade in fossil-fuel alternatives, including biofuels and hydrogen. Its government forecast that hydrogen could meet up to half of the country’s power needs by 2050.

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The city-state’s Energy Market Authority declined to comment. 

Authorities have said that Singapore has received more than 20 proposals for clean electricity supply, including plans from neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia, and was on track to meet a target of importing 4 GW by 2035.

Cannon-Brookes has insisted that electricity exports to Singapore were economic and in demand. Sun Cable confirmed in October that it had received letters of intent from potential customers for the supply of about 2.5 GW, compared to planned capacity of 1.75 GW, said the tech billionaire’s Grok family office. 

“Prospective bidders will have the opportunity to make up their own minds when they have access to the facts via the data room during the sale process,” it added.

Meanwhile, Forrest aims to develop his Fortescue Future Industries, an arm of iron-ore exporter Fortescue Metals Group, into one of the world’s top exporters of green hydrogen, with a shipment target of 15 million tonnes by 2030.

His Squadron Energy Unit, which holds a stake of about 25 per cent in Sun Cable, is considering a potential offer for the company, a person familiar with the details said last week. It would require the exit of the existing leadership team.

“We lost faith in the management and chairman,” Forrest said in the Davos interview. “They’re a little startup that has lavish offices and are spending money like there’s no tomorrow, and the management team plus board are really inexperienced.” 

Sun Cable declined to comment. Administrator FTI Consulting said it was seeking expressions of interest in the recapitalisation or sale of the business. BLOOMBERG