Fortescue Metals Group

Fortescue demonstrates metabolic pragmatism at industrial scale. The world's fourth-largest iron ore producer ships 198 million tonnes annually from Western Australia's Pilbara region at costs of $13.50 per tonne - among the lowest globally. This extraction efficiency mirrors desert specialists like camels: minimize metabolic overhead, maximize resource conversion. While BHP and Rio Tinto operate diversified portfolios, Fortescue concentrated resources on a single metabolic pathway until recently.

Then came the pivot. Between 2020-2024, founder Andrew Forrest committed $6.2 billion to Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), building a green hydrogen division with projects across five continents. This wasn't diversification - it was attempted speciation. But green hydrogen production costs remained stuck at $4.50-6.00 per kilogram versus $1.00-2.00 for gray hydrogen, and market demand declined 15% in 2024. In 2025, Fortescue executed strategic autophagy: canceled Arizona and PEM50 projects, took a $150 million write-down, cut 700+ FFI jobs. The organism shed energetically expensive tissue to protect core metabolism.

What Fortescue discovered is what slime molds know: resource allocation must track environmental reality, not aspirational futures. FY2024 iron ore revenue of $12.7 billion funded the entire green experiment without external capital. When experiments proved metabolically unsustainable, the company reallocated. FY2025 net profit dropped 41% to $3.4 billion, but cash reserves remained strong at $4.3 billion with net debt of only $1.1 billion. The path-dependent infrastructure built for Pilbara iron ore - integrated mines, 620km of rail, three port facilities - creates lock-in that green hydrogen couldn't overcome. Sometimes the most successful organisms are those that recognize their niche and defend it ruthlessly.