The major miner achieved 49.3 million tonnes (Mt) of ore shipped for the June quarter, pushing financial year ore shipments past the 182Mt target for 182.2Mt.

Both figures were records for their respective periods, with the latter up 2 per cent on the previous financial year.

Fortescue chief executive officer Elizabeth Gaines acknowledged the results in the context of some tough conditions.

“This was an outstanding performance despite the impact of wet weather, as well as COVID-19 restrictions requiring many of our team members to remain on site for extended periods during WA’s lockdowns,” Gaines said.

“We greatly appreciate the ongoing cooperation of the entire Fortescue family as we continue to manage the impacts of COVID-19.”

Ore mined was also up 11 per cent for the financial year and up 13 per cent for the quarter, at 226.9Mt and 64.9Mt respectively.

Gaines was equally proud of the company’s efforts in health and safety, further improving on its total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) for the 12 months to June 30 2021.

“I would like to commend the entire Fortescue team for achieving our lowest ever TRIFR safety performance of 2.0, an improvement of 17 per cent from 2.4 at 30 June 2020,” Gaines said.

“This reflects our core value of safety and the commitment to look out for our workmates and ourselves.”

Also making waves at Fortescue was its progress in low-carbon initiatives, thanks to its Fortescue Future Industries team, which looks to lead the global energy transition using zero-emissions green hydrogen power.

“During the quarter, Fortescue Future Industries made significant progress on a number of decarbonisation projects including the successful combustion of ammonia in a locomotive and testing of battery cell technology to be used on Fortescue haul trucks,” Gaines said.

“This work underpins Fortescue’s industry leading target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.”

At the same time, the company’s autonomous haulage fleet surpassed 2 billion tonnes of material moved while ore shipments exceeded 1.5 billion tonnes since first production in 2008.