Homo sapiens.

The company responsible for transporting oil and natural gas to Qingye Group is the New Luzon Shipping Group.

Over there at Dawei Port in Hongshawadi.

Not only is it the largest glass manufacturing city in Southeast Asia, but it has also completed the construction of an oil pipeline and a gas pipeline, which are directly connected to Siam.

In other words, the natural gas and oil needed by Siam can be transported directly from Dawei Port without detouring the Strait of Malacca.

In order to facilitate trade with Hongshawadi, Persia also registered a Persian international trading company in Yangon, which is responsible for this trade.

Although America and the European Union have been constantly suppressing Persia and even prohibiting other regions from trading with Persia.

But this other area definitely does not include Honshawady.

After all, the relationship between Hongshawadi and America is also bad. The gold dollar is not a credit currency and has its own value. As long as the two parties reach an agreement and establish a settlement bank to coordinate trade, America and the European Union can be bypassed.

In recent years, from the perspective of the outside world, the relationship between Luzon, who also has a back bone, and America has become very cold, and a food war even broke out between the two sides.

Therefore, the cooperation between these regions seems to be huddling together for warmth.

This time the Luzon Third Fleet entered the Ceylon Ocean, the purpose was to guard against America's petty moves.

The current Homo sapiens company does not have too many scruples about America.

After all, at this time, 23 atomic bombs of the 30-ton equivalent level and 6 hydrogen bombs of the 100 million-ton equivalent level have been stored in the Black Tiger Canyon in Hongshawadi.

If America makes small moves against the transport fleet, then the Luzon Navy will definitely dare to fight back.

What's more, at this time, America has been devastated because of domestic and Latin American affairs. It is still unknown whether it will have the energy to do things in the Persian Gulf.

Homo Sapiens is also just taking precautions.

……

Ahasi, the president of the Persian International Trading Company, held a large sum of gold dollars in his hand, buying and buying in Yangon.

After all, Hongshawadi's trade rules are very simple, that is, as much as you import, you can export as much, requiring a relative balance.

When Persia exports natural gas and oil, it must import new medicines, grains, meat, wood, and paper from Hongshawadi.

Ahasi sits in a trading room at the Yangon Commodities Trading Centre.

While communicating with the country what needs to be purchased, at the same time, let the subordinates search for the corresponding suppliers on the computer.

"President, the country wants us to purchase a batch of high-quality rice, the quantity not less than 5 tons, and the shipping date must be before October."

Ahasi turned his head: "Musa, place an order for 5 tons, and the contract execution deadline is before October 10."

"Ok."

After a while, eight cooperation consultation letters popped up on Musha's computer page. She quickly printed out these cooperation consultation letters, sorted them out, and handed them over to the president for evaluation.

Ahasi flipped through the eight cooperation consultation letters.

Among these rice suppliers, five are from Hongsawady and the other three are from Siam. The prices are all about the same in the same period. The difference lies in the variety and quality of the rice.

He inquired about the recent international rice prices, and soon decided to purchase 5 tons of first-grade long-grain indica rice from the Magway Grain Company of the United Group.

Then I asked about the quotation of the transportation company.

For this kind of commodity, the quotation of New Luzon Shipping Company is relatively low.

After all, bulk commodities are easier to manage because of their single product, and they don’t need enough containers to be transported on a large scale.

Soon the New Luzon Shipping Company arranged a 5-ton dual-purpose transport ship to quickly go to Yangon Port to load the 5 tons of rice.

This kind of dual-purpose transport ship is the main product produced by New Luzon Shipbuilding Company. It is generally divided into grain + gas transportation type, container + gas transportation type, ore and building materials + gas transportation type.

After collecting more than a dozen transport ships, the Luzon Third Fleet, which had rested in Dawei Port for more than a week, also assigned some warships to escort these transport ships to the Persian Gulf.

These transport ships carried food, building materials, clothing, frozen chicken, frozen mutton, new medicines and test strips, as well as palm oil and coffee beans from Malaysia, as well as some mechanical equipment and electronic products that were transferred from China.

These things are transported to various countries in the Persian Gulf, and then natural gas is obtained from these countries, transported back to Hongshawadi, Luzon, or sold to Huaguo and Siam.

This trade model is a test of the company's internal coordination ability.

It is necessary to maintain the balance of trade, and allow transport ships to form fleets on a regular basis to improve the cost performance of each escort.

If it weren't for a giant company like Homo sapiens, even for a world hegemon like America, it would be difficult to do it, because they have different interest factions within them.

Only a Homo sapiens company that is self-contained and highly united within can realize this precise regulation.

The gas carrier that uses crystal sponge itself has lower transportation costs than ordinary LNG ships, and with the addition of the fleet model, the safety has also improved a lot.

Taken together, New Luzon Shipping Company has great advantages.

Chapter 2 Shock

the other side.

After more than two years of capacity expansion.

New Luzon Shipbuilding Company has formed an annual shipbuilding capacity of 700 to 800 million deadweight tonnages, and can produce everything from various inland river boats to transport ships with a load capacity of 10 tons.

Especially this year, due to the application of new materials, coupled with the precision parts and large gas turbines that can be produced by itself, the shipyard has basically achieved 96% localization of parts and components.

Except for some electronic equipment, other spare parts can basically be produced by themselves.

In fact, in terms of electronic equipment, shipyards only use it on civilian ships. Military ships are all biochips and biosensors, and do not use imported electronic equipment.

As the current three shipbuilding swordsmen in the world, South Korea, Huaguo, and Dongying have now attached great importance to Luzon, a newly emerging shipbuilding force.

For example, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding, and Samsung Heavy Industries at this time.

These three South Korean shipbuilding giants are also among the top ten shipyards in the world, especially Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is the largest shipyard in the world.

Although Luzon's shipbuilding capacity is less than one-fifth of South Korea's.

But Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo did not underestimate the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company. On the contrary, they have already regarded it as a huge threat at this time.

Especially Samsung Heavy Industries, whose core business is the production of LNG carriers.

Park Xiaoying, vice president of Samsung Heavy Industries, is at the shipyard on Geoje Island.

But this time he didn't come to investigate shipbuilding, he came to one of the ship technology research and development departments.

Pu Xiaoying looked at the gas cylinder in front of her eyes: "This is the special gas storage material developed by Luzon people?"

"Yes, vice president." Li Changtai, the chief engineer of the LNG project, replied with a solemn expression.

In fact, since Homo sapiens launched the gas cylinder containing crystal sponge in Luzon, it has attracted the attention of all parties, especially related companies.

Since Luzon is an archipelagic country, those who tried to smuggle gas cylinders containing crystal sponge disappeared quietly in Luzon after being fished.

Therefore, although many forces know of the existence of this technology, no samples have been obtained.

It was not until some time ago that Homo sapiens established a joint venture in Siam and Malaysia that some gas cylinders were smuggled out.

It was at this time that Samsung Heavy Industries obtained samples of the crystal sponge through smuggling channels.

Li Changtai continued: "Vice President, this special gas storage material can store more than 500 kilograms of methane per cubic meter, which is slightly lower than that of liquefied natural gas, but this is not the key point. The material doesn't need to be maintained at low temperatures, or at high pressures."

Pu Xiaoying is not a novice, so she naturally knows what this means: "In other words, the other party's gas storage and transportation costs will be lower than our LNG ships?"

"Yes, there is no doubt about it." Li Changtai was very sure.

As the chief engineer of the LNG ship, he is well aware of the difficulties in the transportation process of the LNG ship, that is, the low temperature and sealing must be kept uninterrupted.

Once the low temperature cannot be maintained, the entire ship of liquefied natural gas will expand rapidly.

At this time, the LNG ship has two choices, either deflate and release the gasified natural gas into the atmosphere; or wait for the expanded natural gas to blow up the entire ship.

And this kind of uninterrupted low-temperature liquefaction transportation must be equipped with special refrigeration equipment, and ordinary refrigeration equipment cannot be used at all.

Specialized ultra-low refrigeration equipment, which can be used in ultra-low temperature environments, non-deformable invar steel storage tanks, sophisticated monitoring systems, and supporting power generation and distribution systems (prepare at least two sets).

In addition, the production of LNG ships also faces a patent issue.

Regardless of the major shipyards in South Korea and Huaguo, they occupy more than 90% of the global market share in the LNG carrier market, but they may not necessarily be profitable.

Park Xiaoying is very clear about this situation. Samsung Heavy Industries' profit on LNG ships is only about 5% of the order price.

Taking a large LNG ship costing US$2 million as an example, Samsung Heavy Industries earned US$1000 million per ship.

However, Samsung Heavy Industries has to pay about 1000 million U.S. dollars in patent fees to GTT in France. This is not a one-time buyout, but a patent fee equivalent to about 5% of the order price for an LNG ship.

This patent fee has to be paid. After all, GTT’s natural gas cryogenic containment system technology is the core technology of the current LNG ship. Any ship company that wants to build an LNG ship and operate it globally must pay this money obediently. .

Now when another technical route is in front of us, it is no wonder that Samsung Heavy Industries, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding and other shipbuilding companies pay so much attention to it.

"Chief engineer Li, can that kind of gas storage material be imitated?"

"Sorry, I have discussed with the material laboratory for more than half a month, and the material laboratory said that mass production is not possible." Li Changtai looked a little frustrated.

Pu Xiaoying frowned: "Why can't it be imitated on a large scale? Are special raw materials used? Or rare elements?"

But Li Changtai's next words made Pu Xiaoying's heart feel cold:

"From the results of material analysis, this gas storage material is a new material formed by biological nanostructures. If it is a laboratory-level replica, we can create similar nanostructures. The problem is that it cannot be mass-produced, especially It’s mass-produced at low cost.”

Park Xiaoying recalled the intelligence of the commercial investigation department and found that the application scenarios in Luzon, Hongshawadi, Siam and other places can indeed show that the production volume of this gas storage material is very large.

The gas storage materials produced by Homo sapiens are not only used on methane transport ships, but also large methane storage tanks in ports and cities, large storage tanks in methane fermentation plants, vehicle-mounted gas storage cylinders, and large storage tanks in thermal power plants. Gas tanks, small gas storage cylinders for daily use by residents, gas storage cylinders for emergency power generation, etc.

Such a huge production volume, if the production cost is too high, obviously it will not be put into commercial application so soon.

"Based on the gas storage material we imitated in the laboratory, its production cost is about US$273 million per cubic meter. Even in large-scale production, it is difficult to reduce the cost per cubic meter to less than US$50."

Hearing the cost, Park Xiaoying immediately gave up.

According to the transportation volume of 10,000+ cubic meters of LNG ships, if we want to switch to new gas storage materials, it will take about 20 cubic meters.

Not to mention $50 per cubic meter, even if it is $5 per cubic meter, Samsung Heavy Industries can't afford it.

They are there to make money, not lose money.

Such a high cost of imitation of gas storage materials has destined a series of shipyards such as Samsung Heavy Industries to be unable to imitate gas storage materials by themselves for a long time to come.

But Park Xiaoying saw a huge crisis.

Now the methane carriers of the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company have appeared in groups in Southeast Asia and the Ceylon Ocean.

According to the data of the International Shipping Agency, there are currently 173 methane carriers under the New Luzon Shipping Company. Although most of them are dual-purpose carriers with a displacement of about 2 tons, their total tonnage has exceeded 530 million. Ton.

What's more, in Pu Xiaoying's view, the threat of the dual-purpose transport ship is even higher.

After all, when the LNG ship produced by Samsung Heavy Industries goes to West Asia to transport natural gas, it must go there empty, and go to the destination empty. On the journey of five or six thousand kilometers, it is basically empty.

However, the ships of the New Luzon Shipping Company can transport a large amount of goods to the Persian Gulf, and then transport methane back.

This is equivalent to going back and forth, all in the process of transportation, there is no gap period, and there is no need for a low-temperature containment system, and the cost has dropped by a large amount.

No wonder Pu Xiaoying is facing a big enemy. The transportation cost advantage of New Luzon is too obvious, and it will inevitably form a huge pressure on LNG ships.

If this problem cannot be resolved as soon as possible, then Samsung Heavy Industries' business in LNG carriers will come to an end sooner or later.

In fact, Samsung Heavy Industries has been affected to a certain extent.

Originally, Samsung Heavy Industries planned to abolish the Mingzhou Port Samsung Shipyard in China in September this year, but now it has been brought forward to July because the business of the shipyard has decreased.

After thinking about it for a long time, Pu Xiaoying decided to contact the heads of companies such as Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding to discuss how to deal with the threat of New Luzon.

2 Chapter [-]

21, April 7.

China.

Minju Port, Samsung Heavy Industries Minju Shipyard.

Since the order from the headquarters has not been obtained in recent years, the business and efficiency of this shipyard are very low. Samsung Heavy Industries is already preparing to abolish the shipyard.

This news was a bolt from the blue for the workers in the shipyard.

Soon many employees became fussy.

However, there are also many employees who have no choice but to make trouble because the contracts signed are outsourcing contracts (similar to labor dispatch). Such employees account for more than half.

Regarding this matter, the special branch of Homo sapiens in Modu quickly received the information.

Carmen Lopez, who is in charge of the overall work of the Homo sapiens company in the Greater China branch, is handling a batch of crane equipment procurement contracts in Shanghai at this time.

Hearing this, he quickly ordered the personnel department to send people to Mingzhou Port to recruit skilled shipbuilding workers, especially those outsourced workers who do the hardest and most tiring work, but their income is much lower than that of regular workers. These people are the worst easy to dig.

In fact, the HR department of Homo sapiens has recruited quite a few skilled workers in the Greater China region in the past one or two years.