Qian Wenhan also officially made a capital increase and share expansion on the eve of New Year's Day, but asked to increase the proportion of shares held on the basis of Cao Mo's offer.

Cao Mo considered the financing of the Wusanghe copper-gold mine project very early, registered a joint stock limited company separately, and after several communications, it was also decided to issue 15 million new shares to Qian Wenhan's Sun Hung Investment Group at a price of 150 million US dollars on the basis of the current 150 million shares.

Qian Wenhan is also aware of the current situation in Akwa and the situation in which European and American mining giants are flocking to Akwa, and suggested that the scale of this C2 reserve exploration and evaluation should be appropriately reduced to reduce the exposure and attention of the Wusan River copper-gold mine in the world.

This is also easy, they don't need to pretend, they only need to eliminate the data of the three exploration wells operated by the exploration company of Ibogu Mining, and the area of the metallogenic area can be reduced by half.

The C2 reserve estimate was finalized at 4.8 million tonnes of copper and 18 million ounces of gold – a figure sufficient to support the current valuation of the US$1.5 billion Usang River copper-gold project.

Now the copper price and gold price are at a historical high, especially after the New Year's Day, the international gold price crossed the key point of 900 US dollars per ounce, and went straight to the high of 1,000 US dollars per ounce that has never been seen in history.

The market value of Xinhai Gold soared to 80 billion yuan in this bull market, and although the market adjusted quite a lot, the market value of Xinhai Gold fell very limited because of the continuous rise in international gold prices.

This situation has also prompted the board of directors of Xinhai Gold to accelerate the pace of overseas expansion in order to have better performance to support the current market value of the company.

In addition to the current trend of rising international gold and copper futures prices and the strong support of this valuation of C2 reserves, Xinhai Gold's participation in this capital injection and share expansion will have greater benefits for Xinhai Gold to officially become a strategic partner and a director shareholder, and it can obtain a large number of direct orders in the export and transfer of technology and machinery and equipment in the development and construction of Wusanghe copper and gold mine.

At the same time, the copper concentrate mined from the Wusan River Copper and Gold Mine can provide a stable supply of raw materials for the smelters of Xinhai Gold, support the expansion of Xinhai Gold in this business, and improve the performance of Xinhai Gold in various aspects.

Of course, the most important thing is that Qian Wenhan took the lead in participating in the investment and endorsing the entire project.

After the board of directors discussed and approved it before the Spring Festival, Xinhai Gold passed the approval of the controlling shareholder, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the District, and finally invested US$150 million to obtain 15 million new shares of the project.

The first phase of the Wusan River copper-gold mine project was invested and officially entered the trial production stage during the Spring Festival.

However, with $150 million, the production capacity of the mines and concentrators currently built is still very limited.

Even if the current copper and gold futures prices are at a historical high, such a high investment, but less than 40,000 tons of copper concentrate annual output, and then further consumed by the high and difficult transit transportation costs, it is simply impossible to generate profits.

The initial investment of $150 million cost $50 million in a new ore freight station, a stockpile and a narrow-gauge railroad connecting the stockpile.

The next largest investment was the hydropower plant in the middle reaches of the Usan River.

The Wusan River is not a big river, and its flow is limited, but in order to ensure the normal mining and construction of the downstream mines, avoid the impact of floods in the rainy season, and improve the upstream flood storage and flood control capacity, the construction of the Wusan River Hydropower Station, which has an annual power generation scale of only 30 million kWh, and the land acquisition investment in the nearby reservoir has exceeded 30 million US dollars.

This amount of money is enough to invest in the construction of a medium-sized hydropower station in Longta, which will generate up to three or four times the annual power generation.

Because of the need to reserve as much flood storage capacity as possible during the rainy season and to reduce potential impacts downstream, the Usan hydropower station is much larger than it can generate.

At present, the main construction of the dam has just been completed, and the construction of the power station building and the installation and commissioning of equipment will be delayed until the end of the year, and it is expected that the official power supply will not be available until the middle of 08.

However, these are necessary investments, without which there would be no way for copper and gold ore to be extracted from the ground and successfully transported to the port of Pemei.

And if you include the total investment of $40 million in cocoa plantations in the Drake area, the entire supporting investment in the early stage far exceeds the investment of the mine and the concentrator itself.

However, with this foundation, with another 300 million US dollars of investment, the production capacity will not simply triple.

In Cao Mo's prediction, when the second phase of the Wusan River No. 1 mine project is completed, the annual export of copper concentrate should reach 300,000 tons, which is converted into 60,000 tons of metal copper and 200,000 ounces of gold, and then the high investment cost in the early stage can naturally be diluted.

After the Spring Festival, it was April in a blink of an eye, and Qian Wenhan rushed to Redke again.

Seeing that the second phase of the Wusang River No. 1 mine has been fully started, after the foundation of the first phase, the construction speed of the second phase is faster, and seeing that many foundation projects are coming to an end, Qian Wenhan couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "The construction speed on your side is much faster than I imagined!"

"With your investment, I have a lot of pressure on my shoulders, so I thought that this project should be profitable as soon as possible. Even if I give everyone three or five million dollars in dividends every year, everyone has a thought in their hearts, and they won't complain that I am a bottomless pit here. Cao Mo said to Qian Wenhan with a smile.

In addition to the fact that the contractors of major projects are mainly Chinese-funded engineering enterprises such as China Soil Group, the construction speed of mining areas and supporting projects is also one of the key factors that Conero Engineering Construction Group has also transferred more than 1,000 construction workers from Kanem to participate in the construction.

Chinese enterprises undertake various projects in Africa, and have always been known for their good quality and speed.

However, it is impossible to afford too high the cost of manpower dispatch, and the major projects undertaken by Chinese enterprises in Africa will be recruited from the local area in addition to the management and large and small foremen.

Among them, it is necessary to carry out the training of labor skills and the cultivation of labor discipline, which usually takes a long period of time to get on the right track.

Although the Conero Engineering Construction Group headed by Liang Siqian is not yet qualified to independently undertake large-scale and complex project construction, it has in its hands all skilled construction workers who have been trained in the construction of various projects in recent years.

The workers under the Conero Engineering Construction Group are almost all brought out by the China Earth Group to undertake the project, and they are already familiar with it up and down, and even have a considerable number of workers who can basically understand some simple Chinese dialogue, saving the run-in period of extremely delayed time, and the construction speed is naturally faster.

Of course, Cao Mo also pays attention to replenishing all kinds of workers from the local area.

The initial investment of US$40 million in cocoa plantations has only a small percentage of local plantations that are ripe and ready for continuous fruit picking.

In order to accommodate as much employment as possible, local workers were hired, and the plantations were mainly leased from local chiefs for reclamation.

Although the rent price of the large barren mountains and barren beaches is quite low, less than one dollar per acre of land per year, it is natural to be extremely happy that the chieftain's family can suddenly have a stable income ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars per year.

To reclaim the plantation, Cao Mo did not engage in large-scale mechanized production as soon as he came up, but hired more than 2,000 descendants of colonists to work, and also hired nearly 4,000 employees of the Kanwa and Akan ethnic groups, mainly using traditional manpower to open up the wasteland.

To put it bluntly, it is to hire as many local workers as possible.

The entire Drake area has a population of more than 400,000 people, 90% of whom are Kanwa and Akan people, although the employment rate is barely more than 1%, but due to the special tribal system and patriarchal system in Africa, such a large-scale employment can cover almost all the people in the Drake area.

At present, the plantation, which is only 60,000 acres of land, is naturally far from needing such a large-scale employment, especially after the end of the reclamation period with a huge scale of labor in the early stage, it is enough to maintain the scale of four or five hundred employees for continuous maintenance in the future.

Of course, with the completion of the initial reclamation of the plantation and the investment of more machinery and equipment, there will inevitably be a large number of employees left, but Cao Mo does not plan to terminate the employment relationship, but plans to continue to transfer manpower to the engineering construction team and the subsequent operation of the mining area, which will not be greatly expanded.

These people are not only Cao Mo's strongest ties with local forces in the future, but also the human resources for the continuous expansion of the construction and mining scale of the mining area.

The last time Qian Wenhan went to Drake, he was very clear about Cao Mo's plans, but what really surprised or convinced him was not Cao Mo's idea, but Cao Mo's ability to implement this plan well in such a short period of time.

All overseas investors know that employing as many local workers as possible, localizing management, and providing more high-income high-level positions for local elites and elites www.23txt.xyz, so as to eliminate the estrangement and antagonism with local powers.

It's also about execution.

The key is how to do this.

Except for a few people such as Cao Mo, Xiao Jun, and Liang Siqian, who played more roles as coordinators, none of Tianyue's team at Drake were Chinese.

However, in this case, Cao Mo managed to effectively organize and operate a team of 8,000 people from the descendants of the local colonizers, Yoruba hired workers from Kanem, as well as local Akan and Kanwa hired workers, and completed and put into operation the first phase of the Wusan River No. 1 Mine Project within a year?

The construction of the entire mining area in the early stage can be said to be in charge of enterprises such as China Earth Group, and the workers in the mine have sufficient training time.

However, the entire plantation employs as many as 6,000 people, and it was basically organized overnight, and there is not a single Chinese person from Little Tubman to the next.

Although Drake's descendants of colonists have a much higher level of education than the local Akan and Kanwa peoples, and can provide a large number of qualified managers and skilled workers, the question is how did Cao Mo select hundreds of qualified middle and low-level managers after he came into contact with Drake's descendants of colonists, and it only took a little more than a year?

What's more, Cao Mo still hired a large number of elites of the Akon and Kanwa ethnic groups in the management of Drake's team, and the Akon and Kanwa ethnic groups have been seriously antagonistic and even hostile to the descendants of the colonizers in the past ten years, and it is impossible for Juan Mantal and Saiweiyi and other high-level Aqwa leaders to provide ethnic reconciliation overnight.

Qian Wenhan was extremely shocked that such a hastily assembled team had successfully run down.

In his view, even if there is no interference from external factors, the supply of funds is sufficient, and Xinhai Gold will send the best mature team to take over the construction of the Wusanghe copper-gold mine project, and it will be qualified to do this within three years.

It only took Cao Mo a little more than a year before and after.

However, to investigate the development history of Cao Mo in Kanem, Qian Wenhan also found that Cao Mo is very good at tapping local human resources and can give full play to his role without obstacles.

Xie Sipeng, who is observant, even mistakenly thought for a long time, or rather, that they only dared to believe that Cao Mo was just an agent of Abacha and Ojosan, and they couldn't believe that all this was a cause created by Cao Mo himself and led by him.

Although Qian Wenhan couldn't figure out what Cao Mo's trick was, he could see the good and the bad.

Maybe someone is born with a very strong affinity and charisma, or leadership.

After Qian Wenhan's first visit to Reykva, in addition to Xinhai Gold's exploration team, he also set up an office in Drake and sent several employees to be stationed here.

This is the key to Qian Wenhan's willingness to invest and hope to come up with more funds to hold more shares.

Cao Mo naturally saw Qian Wenhan's confusion in his eyes, but he couldn't tell Qian Wenhan that all the members of Drake's management team, especially those from the Akon and Kanwa tribes, were almost all moderates, which he could see through at a glance.

The Stru Company was forced to evacuate Akwa that year, but a large number of engineers and technicians, operations management and skilled workers hired from the descendants of the colonists and the local Akan and Kanwa people are actually still there, even if most of them have been abandoned for ten years, but the foundation and foundation are still there.

Therefore, the construction of the operation team and the employment team, Cao Mo did not feel too laborious and difficult.

The formation of plantation workers was even simpler, with a local tradition of cocoa cultivation and tribal chiefs preferring to hire descendants of more educated colonists to manage the plantations at low wages.

When Cao Mo personally presided over the recruitment, as long as he asked a few simple questions, he could eliminate those who had extreme ideas.

It's just that the whole process is extremely hard, and he is in Drake during this time, and he is mainly in contact with grassroots employees, in order to detect bad signs in time and nip them in the bud.

The US$300 million injected by Qian Wenhan and Xinhai Gold can basically only be used to support the second phase of the construction of the first mine, but the potential of the Wusan River copper and gold mine has been clear, and Qian Wenhan came here this time to discuss the next medium and long-term development plan on the east bank of the Wusan River.

In order to reach the mining and beneficiation scale of 2 million tons of copper concentrate per year, the development plan of Wusanghe copper-gold mine has far exceeded the scope of the construction of the mining area itself, and the corresponding plan has also been made by the relevant research institutes.

First of all, to achieve this level of mining, the number of local workers will exceed 20,000, including family members, which is the population size of a small city, and it is now necessary to coordinate the construction of employee communities with the construction of white communities, and it may be time to push the Drake regional government to plan and build a new urban area on the east bank of the Usan River.

Secondly, the Akwa authorities are currently more encouraging the re-export of copper concentrate after smelting in its country, even if it is for the sake of tariff reduction and transportation cost savings, and then it will also need to consider investing in the construction of a copper smelter in Drake as a sole proprietorship or a joint venture with Xinhai Gold to refine blister copper and re-export gold.

However, Drake's existing thermal power plant, which has been in service for more than 30 years, and two small hydropower stations, are far from being able to support the power supply, and it is necessary to bring in energy and power companies to invest in the construction of new thermal power plants, and the power grid on both sides of the Usan River must be replanned and built.

There is also the capacity bottleneck of the Kruno-Pemei railway and the port of Pemei that need to be addressed.

Don't expect others to do it for no reason, these things need to be directly led by Ibogu Mining, or new strategic partners will be introduced.

Qian Wenhan has sufficient funds in his hands, and Cao Mo hopes that he can come over this time to negotiate the injection of Conero Energy, and then acquire the Drake thermal power plant in the name of Conero Energy, first upgrade the power generation equipment and regional power grid, initially improve the power supply force and stability, and lay the foundation for the subsequent new power plant.

At this time, Yibogu Mining simply did not have the ability to build a large-scale copper smelter, and Xinhai Gold was also very cautious in its investment decisions, and would not rashly spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build a factory in Drake in a short period of time.

It is also meaningless for the two of them to invest in one or two small and medium-sized copper smelters in Drake, but they can attract small and medium-sized domestic investors to build small and medium-sized copper refineries and various copper processing plants in Drake, and help them digest a batch of copper concentrate on the spot, which can more or less reduce the transportation pressure on the Kruno-Pemei railway.

Copper ore is refined into blister copper and gold, and the transportation volume is reduced to one-fifth of what it used to be.

Cao Mo will save part of the transportation cost and tariff reduction, and it is definitely profitable for investors to build small and medium-sized copper smelters in Drake.

Of course, this premise is to solve the problem of power supply shortage first.

Qian Wenhan will not refuse to invest in Conero Energy.

Upstream power supply, mid-end copper concentrate mining, selection, downstream ocean transportation, this is a long industrial chain end of the investment logic, he has the financial strength, participate in the construction of the upper and lower chain end of the link, and finally do mature, naturally each link will return rich returns.

Whether it is Conero Energy or the Gulf of Guinea shipping and mining company, there will be business related to the copper-gold concentrate of the Usan River in the future, but it will not focus on this, which is equivalent to diversifying the investment risk of this long industrial chain a lot.

The key is what kind of bargaining chips to intervene in Conero Energy, this has to be negotiated with the two major shareholders of Dongsheng and Dracula Power Supply Group, Cao Mo can only push from the side, he has completely withdrawn from Conero Energy.

Of course, at present, Dongsheng is short of funds, and it may be possible to directly sell part of the shares of Conero Energy.

"The Conero Cement under your name doesn't open the investment gap?" Qian Wenhan asked with concern.

"It's not that I don't want to open it, I really don't know how to quote in order to satisfy both parties......" Cao Mo said with some embarrassment.

The total assets of Conero Cement are 120 million US dollars, and after deducting the 40 million US dollars of acquisition payable to Taihua Group after one and a half years, the actual net assets are only 80 million US dollars, but the annual profitability of Conero Cement has been able to achieve the target of 100 million yuan.

How to price Conero cement to satisfy investors?

What's more critical is that Yibogu Mining has injected 300 million US dollars, and the gold price continues to grow by leaps and bounds this year, and its own hematopoietic capacity is expected to reach 100 million to 150 million US dollars, which has completely solved the problem of capital hunger in a short period of time.

Even before the Spring Festival, Conero Cement directly launched the annual production capacity of up to 2 million tons of finished cement production capacity, the production process level and investment cost of the third plant, as well as the construction of a 50,000-ton dedicated wharf, can be completely self-sufficient in terms of funds.

After the completion of the third plant and the completion of the acquisition and upgrading of the Cotonou cement plant in Benin, the annual production capacity of Conero cement will increase by leaps and bounds to 5 million tons, and when the 50,000-ton special terminal is completed, the sales will radiate to the entire Gulf of Guinea coastal countries, and can also extend to the longer Central and South Africa and Northwest Africa, and the annual profitability is expected to increase to 150 million to 200 million US dollars.

The price of copper and gold is directly linked to international futures, and copper concentrate is mined and is not even affected by the fluctuation of local currency exchange rates.

The situation is completely different for Conero Cement, which is mainly produced and sold in West Africa.

At present, Cao Mo can only guarantee to gradually reduce the production cost of Conero cement, improve product quality and market competitiveness, and constantly improve the sales model in the downstream market, but in West African countries, in addition to the price of finished cement fluctuating like a neuropathy, the final profit is directly related to the stability of the local currency.

One day, Kanem's economic growth slows down, the local currency Naira exchange rate plummets, and Conero Cement's dollar profits will also fall sharply - this is completely different from the fact that the RMB exchange rate has remained stable all year round and fluctuates only within a very small range.

"Mr. Qian, you are really interested, Conero Cement, I can sell 5% of the shares to you for 30 million dollars. If you want more shares, the price is too low, but if I raise the offer, you will definitely consider that there are too many and complicated elements for Conero Cement to be disrupted in the West African market!"

Cao Mo is willing to symbolically sell a small part of Conero Cement to Qian Wenhan, in addition to hoping that he will be more deeply involved in investment in West Africa, on the other hand, it is also to see the strength of Qian Wenhan and Ge Jun at the level of capital operation, which can open up a new choice for the final development of Conero Cement......