FMG Fortescue Ltd

By Robb M. Stewart

Fortescue has secured support and incentives for a manufacturing center in Detroit that is set to become a hub for the Australian mining company's production of automotive and heavy-industry batteries and fast chargers.

The company plans to rehabilitate a facility in Detroit, turning it into a manufacturing and engineering workspace as part of its broader effort to branch out from iron ore and build a major clean-energy business.

To support the project, the Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $9 million state development program performance-based grant, a 15-year, 100% state essential services assessment exemption valued at about $1.3 million, and a state tax capture worth almost $2.4 million for the reimbursement of redevelopment work at the site.

Fortescue said the City of Detroit Brownfield Redevelopment Authority also supporting the project through the local portion of redevelopment work valued at about $4.2 million and the city has offered an industrial facilities tax abatement valued at up to almost $7.7 million.

The company is targeting production at the facility beginning in 2025, and said the site has the potential to create as many as 600 jobs as product lines ramp up in 2030. The new Fortescue site was originally constructed in 1920 as Fisher Body 23 and has 410,000 square feet of space, over six floors on 14 acres.

Fortescue last year approved a $550 million green hydrogen project in Arizona as part of a three-year investment, joining other foreign companies attracted to the U.S. by the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act. In December, the company received almost EUR204 million ($221.8 million) in European Union funding for a green ammonia project in Norway.

Mark Hutchinson, chief executive of Fortescue Energy, on Tuesday said the company was committed to investing in the next generation of green manufacturing projects to help decarbonize business and heavy industry.

Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 23, 2024 12:13 ET (17:13 GMT)

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