Xie Sipeng rushed back to Draculamo this time, hoping to pull Shen Ji to cooperate, and he didn't hide what he said, so he told Shen Ji and Cao Mo about his contact with iron ore trade in Akwa for most of the past six months.

He first came to Akwa because he heard that placer gold could be mined there, and after he arrived in Akwa, he did invest nearly a million dollars in several small placer gold mines in the Mamba area, and the output was considerable, but due to the restrictions imposed by the Akwa military authorities on foreign gold investors, he could not continue to expand the scale of placer gold mining.

In April, he met Guo Hongliang, the boss of the shipping company that had transported cement to Kanem for him and Yang Deshan, at the port of Lomé in Akwa, and only then did he know that Guo Hongliang, nicknamed the crow, had joined forces with the bulk carrier invested by the same villagers to receive orders and began to transport iron ore between the port of Pemei and Xinhai in Akwa after the international iron ore price rose sharply at the end of last year.

For a long time, the most important iron ore mining area in Africa was concentrated in South Africa, and South Africa's iron ore reserves accounted for only about 6/1000 of the world's commercially exploitable iron ore reserves.

This figure alone suggests that there are very limited reserves of commercially exploitable iron ore in Africa as a whole, and even less so in West Africa.

However, this is not the case.

This is mainly due to the serious backwardness of exploration of iron ore and other mineral deposits in Africa - the most high-profile gold exploration in West Africa is actually not very sufficient, and there are a lot of gaps in the southwest of Benin, the west of Kanem, the northwest and other regions.

There is a serious shortage of high-grade high-quality iron ore in China, which has made domestic iron and steel enterprises pay more and more attention to the rapid development of coastal areas in recent years, and also made domestic steel enterprises more and more dependent on overseas iron ore.

In Australia and Brazil, which are the main exporters of traditional iron ore, high-quality hematite and magnetite are mainly controlled by three or four super mining companies.

Due to the rapid development of domestic steel production capacity, it is expected that the domestic crude steel output will be able to account for 40% of the world by 08 years, iron ore under the control of large miners, FOB prices have soared year after year, forcing domestic steel enterprises and iron ore traders to Brazil, Australia and other regions to find new iron ore supply.

As a traditional iron ore producing area in West Africa, Akwa has long been mined for iron ore, mainly exported to iron and steel companies in southern Europe and other places.

Now that domestic iron ore traders and steel companies are setting their sights on the world, it is not surprising that some people have come to Akwa to find iron ore supplies.

However, in the whole of West Africa, except for Draculamo, the port construction in other places is too backward, and the port of Pemei in Akwa can only berth a maximum of 30,000 tons of ore carriers.

From West Africa to China, it is too far away, and the 30,000-ton ore ship takes such a long sea route, and the freight cost is too high to spread out to each ton of iron ore, and no domestic shipping company has been willing to take this route.

Ore traders who went to Akwa and were able to buy iron ore from the local area and ship it to the port of Pemei, but they could not find a mine ship to transport back to the country.

Xie Sipeng pondered this matter since he came into contact with Guo Hongliang in early April, and in August, he made up his mind to directly buy a mining ship to open up both trade and transportation, which would pull Xu Sheng to find Cao Mo to sell their equity assets in the Qiao Nai gold mine, and do everything possible to raise money

Collect funds to buy ships.

Last year, the dependence of domestic iron and steel on overseas iron ore reached 270 million tons, and Xie Sipeng and his ship were able to transport more than 100,000 or 200,000 tons of iron ore from Akwa back to China in one year, which can be described as a drop in the ocean.

According to the measurement of the steel production capacity that is being built or expanded in China, it is estimated that by 08, it will be necessary to import 450 million tons from overseas to meet the needs of the domestic steel industry - regardless of the previous stock, the new demand for the next two years alone will be terrifyingly high.

Xie Sipeng now hates himself for having too little capital and not being able to eat much of the cake in this field......

In addition to purchasing or signing more mining ships to ensure capacity, it is also necessary to sign an ideal supply agreement with mining companies.

In addition to the right price, the most important point of an ideal supply agreement is to ensure a stable supply of iron ore.

Now the global iron ore supply is relatively tight, and Akwa's main Mangba iron ore mine has a production capacity of less than two million tons a year, so it is not worrying about selling.

Xie Sipeng, as a pioneer, took the lead in preparing his own ore carriers, and there are not many people competing with him for the time being, so he can still buy enough iron ore from the main Mangba iron mine in Akwa to load the ship, but it is difficult for him to sign a stable long-term supply agreement with Mangba iron mine.

Akwa is currently under the rule of the military government, and the country's mineral exploitation is strictly restricted from foreign capital, and iron ore mining, mainly Mangba iron ore, is also under the direct control of the Akwa National Oil and Mining Company.

Xie Sipeng has been active in Akwa for so long, and it is not that he has not thought about trying to get through the high-level relations of the Akwa National Oil and Mining Company.

They agreed to sign a long-term supply, and did not put forward excessive requirements, that is, they were required to pay 50% of the supply scale in advance according to the current futures price.

In other words, if Xie Sipeng hopes to ensure a total of 200,000 tons of iron ore supply from Mangba Iron Mine in 07 years, he only needs to pay a deposit of 10 million US dollars.

If you can't get this deposit, then you're sorry, and you can only trade cash or bank drafts and letters of credit with sufficient credit value in cash.

Xie Sipeng is now not only worried that there will be more and more buyers, but also worried about the emergence of competitors with sufficient capital strength to directly monopolize the supply of Mangba iron ore, then he will become extremely passive, and it is likely that in the entire trade chain of iron ore, he can only earn a little freight.

"You hurried to Kanem, it turned out that you came to raise money. I think okay, it's not been a day or two for us to cooperate with you, bring the Chinese businessmen from Dracula over and touch it, and everyone should be able to get together and lend you 10 million US dollars, even if it is 20% interest......" Cao Mo joked.

Xie Sipeng smiled bitterly and said, "I'll make some hard-earned money, so you can't bear to torture me so ruthlessly?"

He has now invested 15 million US dollars, some of which are borrowed at high interest rates, which has already diluted his profits, and if he borrows a large amount of money in order to sign a long-term supply agreement with Mangba Iron Mine, he has to pay an additional 2 million US dollars a year in financing costs, why should he have to endure this hardship?

He couldn't say that Cao Mo's joke was not funny at all, so he hurried over to follow

When Shen Ji met, the key was that Dongsheng's Hexi Fund held 6% of the shares of Xinhai United Iron and Steel Group.

Xinhai United Iron & Steel Group, as a large steel industry group with an annual steelmaking capacity of more than 6 million tons, relies on overseas imports of all the iron ore required for its production, and imported a total of 12 million tons of iron ore of various grades last year, not considering the new production capacity of Xinlian Iron and Steel in the next few years.

Xie Sipeng thought that the main reason why Akwa National Oil and Mining Company raised the deposit request was because he was worried about the instability of the supply chain on his side, if he could first sign an iron ore purchase agreement with Xinlian Iron and Steel, and then use this agreement to negotiate with Akwa National Oil and Mining Company, it should be able to reduce the other party's requirements——

"I'm afraid it's difficult," Shen Ji is in charge of the overseas investment department, and he knows the situation of domestic bulk commodity import trade very well, not to mention that Xinlian Steel has such a close relationship with the Ding family, and said with a deep groan, "Xinlian Steel's main supply is several super mining companies such as Brazil's Vale, Australia's BHP Billiton, and Rio Tinto, and they have cooperated with these super mining companies for many years, and have already signed long-term supply agreements." Xinlian Steel will not mind buying iron ore from small and medium-sized miners, but it is unlikely to sign a long-term contract. Of course, if you can supply 2 million tons of iron ore to Xinlian Steel every year, you should also be able to sign a long-term contract......"

Xie Sipeng smiled bitterly, in addition to maintaining long-term cooperation with several steel companies in southern Europe, Mangba Iron Mine has added a lot of mining scale in the past two years, and there are six or seven hundred thousand tons of iron ore that can be supplied sporadically every year.

Besides, Shen Ji and Ding Zhaoqiang behind him are unwilling to come out to help, he needs to get the corresponding supply agreement from the mining company first, and then Xinlian Steel may sign a purchase agreement with him, and the order is not possible to reverse.

In the final analysis, it is necessary to have sufficient capital support to achieve the success of large traders.

"Tianyue's business in Akwa is doing well, now you can see Huachen Motorcycle's advertisements everywhere in Peimei Port, I heard Xiao Jun say that Tianyue also plans to buy a cocoa plantation in Akwa, Mr. Shen came over this time, he didn't plan to go to Akwa?" Xie Sipeng didn't expect Shen Ji to promise to help find Xinlian Iron and Steel to make peace now, or hoped that Shen Ji could go to Akwa, just thinking about whether the two sides could find common interests, and then it would be more logical to talk about cooperation.

Although Shen Ji has participated in the investment of Tianyue Industry, a subsidiary of Tianyue Trading, Tianyue International has nothing to do with him - and the part of the funds that belonged to him in the equity transaction of Conero Energy at the beginning, Cao Mo has long been secretly transferred from Tianyue International to his overseas account.

Hearing Xie Sipeng say this, Shen Ji knew that he still thought that he was the person behind Tianyue International.

Seeing that Cao Mo seemed to be drinking cold beer completely unconsciously, Shen Ji could only smile bitterly twice in his heart, it was impossible to throw the black pot out at this time.

"Why don't you wait for Draculamo's affairs to be dealt with, and let's go to Akwa together?" Shen Ji looked at Cao Mo and asked.

"Besides, go when you have time. Cao Mo knew that Shen Ji had come over this time to talk about something, but he didn't really need to go, and now he could only make a vague perfunctory remark, saving himself too much to say, and Xie Sipeng couldn't get rid of it......