"Prince Brise, this is Mr. Feng Xiaochen, the general manager of our equipment industry company. Mr. Feng, this is Prince Brise, the chief representative of the Saudi Red Sea Oil Company in China. ”

In the small conference room of the equipment company, Wang Genji introduced Feng Xiaochen and a man dressed in the Middle East to each other in a serious manner.

Prince Brise stepped forward with a smile on his face, shook hands with Feng Xiaochen, and then planned to have a Middle Eastern-style veneer ceremony. Feng Xiaochen hurriedly dodged away, he was not a diplomat, he didn't have to think about diplomatic etiquette or anything like that, and he had a face-to-face salute with a foreign rough man, which was really beyond Feng Xiaochen's psychological tolerance.

"Prince Brise, please take a seat, and I have the pleasure of inviting you to our company, hoping that your precious time has not been wasted. Feng Xiaochen said the scene and beckoned the other party to take a seat.

Prince Blaise naturally didn't care about Feng Xiaochen's rudeness just now, he still understood the principle of following the customs. He thanked Feng Xiaochen, and then sat down with his entourage, waiting for Feng Xiaochen to get to the point.

The Red Sea Oil Company, represented by Prince Buris, is a large oil company in Saudi Arabia, which controls 30% of Saudi Arabia's oil resources, and its annual oil production and export volume also reach about 30% of the entire Saudi Arabia. The Red Sea Oil Company only established a representative office in China half a year ago, and it was at that time that Prince Brose was appointed by the company to come to China with the intention of selling the Red Sea Company's oil to China.

Saudi Arabia is a world-famous oil hegemon, and its oil production once ranked first in the world, but it has only been surpassed by other countries in a few years. But during this era, China's cooperation with Saudi Arabia in oil was very weak, and China's largest sources of oil in the Middle East were Oman, Yemen and Iran, and Saudi Arabia's oil exports to China were very limited.

In terms of total GDP, China is not yet an economic powerhouse, and its GDP ranking is even behind Italy, ranking seventh in the world. In the past 20 years, China's average annual economic growth rate has reached more than 8 percent, and if it continues at this rate, China's economy will surpass Italy, France, Britain, and Germany in less than 10 years and reach the third place in the world.

At the same time of economic development, China's resource imports are also rising rapidly, and it has gradually become a buyer that cannot be ignored in the international oil, iron ore and copper ore markets. The Saudi government has also observed this situation and realized that it cannot ignore a fast-growing market like China.

In fact, oil tyrants also have their own troubles, oil can only be turned into wealth by selling, and if there are no buyers, then no amount of oil resources will have any effect. Many economic analysts have pointed out that the 21 st century will be China's century, and if any country loses the Chinese market, it will lose the entire century. Prince Bryce came to China with this in mind.

During the six months in China, Prince Bryce visited many Chinese ministries and large oil refiners to try to persuade them to import more Saudi oil. However, China's oil import pressure at this time is not great, and Indonesia, Oman, Yemen, Angola and other countries can provide China with enough oil, so Prince Brise's lobbying will not play a role.

Just when Prince Bryce was at a loss, an official who claimed to be from the China Equipment Industry Company approached his door and invited him to the talks, claiming that the talks might be of great help to Saudi crude oil exports to China. Hearing this, Brece hurriedly agreed, and came to the equipment company at the appointed time with his entourage and a box full of gifts.

In various literary works and popular jokes, Saudi princes are extremely rich and stylish. Bryce is also a rich man, and the wealth in his private name can definitely be ranked in the top ten of the rich list in today's China, but when it comes to panache, he has nothing at all, at least in front of Feng Xiaochen, he must be very humble.

"Your Royal Highness the Prince, I heard that you have been in China for a long time, and you must have already visited the places of interest in China, right?" Feng Xiaochen opened his mouth and opened up his family with Bresla.

Bryce smiled politely and said, "I did visit some of the famous monuments, such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, but I haven't had time to visit many more monuments yet, because I still have a lot of work to do." ”

"Yes, yes, work is important, and His Royal Highness the Prince's professionalism is worth learning from all of us. Feng Xiaochen said that although he said this, there was no respect in his tone, which made people feel that he was quite insincere.

Breth could only see the trick and said: "Mr. General Manager is too modest, and the professionalism of your Chinese is the most worthy of our learning." ”

"Haha, let's learn from each other. Feng Xiaochen responded with a smile, and then asked, "His Royal Highness the Prince has worked so hard, and the results must be very gratifying, right?"

"This ......" Bryce looked a little embarrassed, he had been in China for half a year, and he could be said to have found nothing. Did the Chinese official in front of him really not know, or did he deliberately say this in order to humiliate himself?

After thinking about it for a while, Bulis decided to tell the truth, he spread his hand to Feng Xiaochen, and said: "It's a pity that I have been in China for more than half a year, and I have never been able to convince your official to accept Saudi oil. Your oil companies seem to be more interested in oil from Indonesia and Angola, when in fact Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter. ”

"Does His Royal Highness the Prince want to know what the reason is?" Feng Xiaochen asked.

"Of course!" Bryce's eyes widened, "Mr. General Manager, can you tell me the real reason?"

Feng Xiaochen said: "The reason is actually very simple, your country's oil is high-sulfur oil, which is completely different from China's low-sulfur oil. Our refiners cannot use your oil for refining. ”

"That's the reason?" Bryce was dumbfounded, could that be a reason?

"Isn't this reason enough?" Feng Xiaochen asked with a smile.

Oil produced around the world may have the same name, but its quality varies widely. According to the specific gravity of crude oil, it can be divided into light crude oil, medium crude oil, heavy crude oil and extra-heavy crude oil; according to the sulfur content of crude oil, it can be divided into sweet crude oil, sour crude oil and sour crude oil; according to the composition of wax, it can be divided into low wax crude oil, waxy crude oil and high wax crude oil; and paraffin-based crude oil, intermediate base crude oil and naphthenic crude oil according to chemical composition.

According to the different quality of crude oil, people need to design different refining processes, which involve not only differences in refining methods, but also differences in refining products. For example, some crude oil is suitable for the production of gasoline and diesel, while some crude oil is suitable for the production of lubricating oils, aromatic hydrocarbon chemical raw materials and light hydrocarbon chemical raw materials. At the beginning of the design of an oil refinery, it is necessary to take into account the market demand and the type of crude oil that will be used in the future, and determine the appropriate process flow. Of course, the process of the refinery also has a certain adaptability, not that it cannot be produced if the oil is changed, but the efficiency will be greatly affected when other oil products are used for production.

Before the 90s, China was a self-sufficient country in crude oil, and the refineries were designed according to the characteristics of Daqing oil. Daqing oil is a typical low-sulfur oil, which is in stark contrast to the high-sulfur oil in the Middle East. Since domestic refineries have always been designed to refine low-sulfur oil, when importing crude oil, oil companies also tend to choose Indonesian oil and African oil, which are also low-sulfur, and Saudi oil cannot be favored by domestic refineries, which is the reason.

"However, all countries in the world are capable of refining high-sulfur oil, after all, there are many more high-sulfur oil than low-sulfur oil on the earth, haven't you considered using high-sulfur oil?" Of course, he knew the difference between high-sulfur oil and low-sulfur oil, and he also knew that refining the two types of oil required different production processes. But the production process is different, and it should not be a reason to reject Saudi oil.

Feng Xiaochen said very seriously: "Your Royal Highness, you should know that most of China's current refineries are designed to refine low-sulfur oil, and the two new refineries with an annual refining capacity of more than 10 million tons that we are preparing to build will also be designed according to the process of refining low-sulfur oil, so ......."

"Wait!" Bryce suddenly grasped the mystery in Feng Xiaochen's words, and he asked: "Mr. General Manager, are you saying that China will build two new oil refineries with an annual output of more than 10 million tons?"

"Exactly. Feng Xiaochen said, "China's economy is developing very fast, we now have a large gap in refined oil products, in the next few years, we will increase the construction of oil refineries, so that our refined oil supply capacity to keep up with the needs of economic development." ”

"Why, then, didn't you think about designing the new refinery process to be suitable for our high-sulfur oil in the Middle East? Don't you think the Middle East is the most stable supply of oil?" asked Bryss.

Feng Xiaochen nodded and said, "As far as I know, China's Development Planning Commission has also seriously discussed this issue. There is a school of thought that the Middle East oil supply is sufficient, and our country should increase oil imports from the Middle East in the future, and for this reason, the new refinery should be designed according to the process of refining high-sulfur oil. ”

"That's exactly right!" Bryce shouted impatiently.

Feng Xiaochen smiled and said: "But there is another school of thought that the technology of high-sulfur oil processing is difficult and the investment is too high, and China is a country with a serious shortage of funds, so it should use limited funds to build more refineries." As for crude oil supply, Indonesia, Malaysia, Angola and Australia all have a lot of low-sulfur oil, so why should we spend so much money on high-sulfur oil?"