Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) is an Australian iron ore company. Fortescue is the fourth largest Iron ore producer in the world as of March 2011. 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, larger than both BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.

The group has two main areas of operation in the Pilbara region of Western Australia; the Chichester Hub and Solomon Hub, with plans for the third Western Hub being developed.

Located in the heart of the Pilbara, the Chichester Hub is made up of Fortescue’s flagship minesite Cloudbreak and the second minesite Christmas Creek. Together, the two minesites currently produce 55 million tonnes per annum and will ramp up to a combined 155 million tonnes per annum when the planned expansion is completed.

Fortescue’s first minesite Cloudbreak currently mines and processes over 110,000 tonnes each day. The horizontal nature of the deposits at Cloudbreak called for a new mining approach to those used at other mines which operate on vertical deposits of ore. Overburden removal is done using conventional blast, truck and shovel methods while specially designed surface miners cut and load the ore into trucks for transport to the run of mine stockpiles. Screening, crushing and desand plants at the Cloudbreak ore processing facility prepare and refine the product before the ore is stockpiled ahead of transport to port. The train loadout facility at Cloudbreak is capable of feeding 16,000 tonnes of ore per hour on the 2.7 kilometre long trains ready for the journey along the 256 kilometre heavy haul railway to the facilities at Herb Elliott Port.

John Andrew Henry Forrest (born 1961), better known as Andrew or by his nickname Twiggy, is a Western Australian mining magnate currently a non-executive chairman and previously the chief executive officer of Fortescue Metals Group (FMG). In 2010 he surpassed James Packer as the richest man in Australia.

Forrest was born in Perth, Western Australia, the youngest of three children of Donald and Judith Forrest. He is the great-great nephew of John Forrest, the first premier of Western Australia. His great-grandfather, David Forrest, was the manager and (with his brothers John and Alexander, and Septimus Burt) part-owner of Minderoo Station. Forrest's early years were spent as a jackaroo at Mindaroo Station, in the Pilbara. Minderoo was owned by the Forrest family until it was sold in 1998 by Donald due to relentless drought and debt, but was bought back by Andrew in 2009.

Forrest was educated at Onslow Primary School, before moving back to Perth to attend Christ Church Grammar School and then Hale School. As a child, he suffered a stutter problem, which is how he came to develop a relationship with Ian Black, whose father Scotty Black, an Aboriginal, became Forrest's mentor. Forrest then attended the University of Western Australia where he studied a double major in economics and politics.