"Mr. Auerbach, Mr. Auerbach, please wait a minute!

In the hall on the second floor of the Yuezhou Hotel, as the door of the conference room opened, Lawrence immediately pounced, but the expression on his face was more pretending to be casual.

"You're ......" Auerbach from the Department of Energy scanned up and down suspiciously, making Lawrence very embarrassed.

But he could only introduce himself one more time: "I made an appointment with you yesterday through the consulate, Clayton Lawrence of Praxair. ”

"So you're Lawrence, no introduction, I know. Auerbach raised his hand slightly to stop the other.

Of course he knew about this appointment, he just didn't know Lawrence's face - here in Guangdong, he could still receive three or five appointments from white European and American people every day, and he couldn't just see a white man's face rushing over and determine who it was, right?

It can only be blamed that Lawrence does not understand how busy an official from the US Department of Energy will be after appearing at the Canton Fair.

Even if there is no list of departments and suppliers, they will try to get acquainted with each other.

So much so that Auerbach has recently become accustomed to being a god, and he is born to speak a head above others.

Lawrence has been cornered and can only make a long story short: "I heard that the Department of Energy bought the equipment of the Chinese? I think you may have understood that we at Praxair are the most powerful gas separation equipment manufacturer in the United States, and we are also the only company in the United States that has helium machine technology." Although the Three Mile Island incident happened suddenly, why didn't the Department of Energy consider being more cautious?"

Auerbach took off his glasses and squinted at Lawrence with a little presbyopia:

"Clayton, the first two sets of procurement contracts have been signed. You're not hoping for a default on the DOE. I know that your company is also very powerful, if you are interested, you can participate in the centralized bidding in the follow-up -

This time it was just an emergency order, and we even asked suppliers to cut the queue and temporarily adjust the specifications of the orders that were originally going to be produced to North Korea and Romania, and then replenish them to another country. Can you come up with two sets in a month?"

"In such a hurry, no one will pre-produce these things, because they have to be fine-tuned and customized according to the needs of customers......"

"Then wait for the centralized bidding later, is it okay?" Auerbach's tone was already unmistakable.

It is just a procurement contract with a total price of more than $1 million, and it has to be so urgent, and with the deep pockets of the US Department of Energy, it is not taken into account at all. Only when large orders are issued in the follow-up can it be possible to organize complete technical bidding.

Moreover, for a middle-level official like Auerbach, this is completely a temporary achievement at hand - the ministers and bureau chiefs above did not know that the Chinese could build a helium machine, and originally just sent him to participate in the Canton Fair, buy something to show Sino-US friendship, and then communicate with Chinese officials on a retreat, that's all.

It was after he arrived in Guangdong that he discovered this shining point, and then took the initiative to report to the ministry and promote this task, which was overfulfilled. How could he let the credit slip away.

Lawrence and Auerbach exchanged words for less than ten minutes, and Lawrence finally understood the other party's position from words and observations, as well as the progress of negotiations with the Chinese side, and the extent to which the signing had been finalized.

He had no choice but to back down:

"Mr. Auerbach, of course, we have no disrespect for the order you have confirmed. However, as a domestic technical authority in this field, it is our obligation to share professional advice for the relevant part - I have brought technical evaluators here today, hoping to provide some expert opinions on the subsequent large-scale bidding and bidding. ”

In the bidding project, everyone knows that the most effective way to draw salary is to directly enter Party A's expert group. At that time, what technical standards should be met for the products that Party A wants, all of them can be written in accordance with what is beneficial to them.

For example, the transportation departments of those Southeast Asian countries often set a very special shape requirement in the street lamp bidding project, which is called the municipal aesthetic needs.

But the bid will be closed within 24 hours at most after the requirements are announced, and the samples must be sealed, and it will definitely be too late to temporarily open the mold - think about it with your knees, this shows that only the director's brother-in-law has opened the mold in advance and waits. (Domestic bidding laws are much more robust than in Southeast Asia, and this is hardly the case.) ）

Lawrence's abacus is naturally very shrewd.

"Advice on technical tenders? That's great, that's welcome. ”

Auerbach changed his previous business routine, and then personally took over a thick technical case from a Praxair technical attaché behind Lawrence, and then he himself pretended to flip through it, and found that the focus was completely different from what the Chinese side had provided in the morning, and then threw it to the technical officer behind him.

"Let the engineers of the three parties argue about this. Auerbach clearly knows how to specialize in the arts.

Lawrence was anxious: "Mr. Auerbach, don't you think that our technical arguments are very rigorous, and you should not give priority to the opinions of foreigners in early bidding!"

Auerbach spread his hands: "But the technical tender proposal that Mr. Director sold to me in the morning has a completely different focus than yours - you don't think about energy consumption here, and the difference between the two is many times greater.

The Chinese side is even willing to optimize the energy consumption of the scheme of 'helium co-production from the tail gas of the natural gas industry', and the refrigeration demand in the process link can even be 40 degrees wider than yours. I don't understand what your selling point is at all. ”

"This is impossible! The refrigeration requirement is relaxed by 40 degrees? There is absolutely no such technology for producing helium on earth! This technology can only produce liquid nitrogen!" Lawrence was completely shocked.

He worked at Praxair for 15 years, and although he didn't come from a technical background, he still had common sense.

"Then I have no choice, let the tripartite engineers argue. ”

Then, a technical official from the Department of Energy, a technical negotiator brought with Lawrence, and a 17-year-old Chinese teenager were locked up alone in a small conference room for a three-way debate.

……

A Chinese official who shook hands with Auerbach just a few minutes ago to celebrate the happy cooperation, that is, the director of the Foreign Affairs Bureau, was still a little apprehensive when he saw this scene.

He grabbed his subordinate Director Bao and asked softly and seriously: "Is it really okay to let that Xiao Gu go?"

"Director, he's the only technician here, and the administrative officials can't help. I can only trust him. Director Bao said euphemistically.

The director paced back and forth a few steps, and finally decided not to think about it, found a sofa to sit down, and then pointed to the position next to him:

"The morning was too hasty, what is the selling point of the technical solution that Xiao Gu said can ensure that the Ministry of Energy will definitely accept? ”

Director Bao immediately shook his spirits and began to explain: "That's right, before the birth of the membrane method, when the pure cooling method made helium, it was directly burned with other nitrified waste gases, lime water, and then the tail gas was reduced to ultra-low temperature and ultra-high pressure to separate the helium.

Because a large amount of gas is directly reduced to ultra-low temperature, the energy consumption is too wasteful, and the helium content in the air is too small. The above-mentioned exhaust gas is equivalent to roughly removing 78% of nitrogen and 21% oxygen in the air, and only the remaining 1% of rare gas is cooled to prepare, and the proportion of helium in the cooling gas is increased by 100 times.

The United States and the Soviet Union are typical natural gas bonanza countries, and their natural gas composition is very good, with higher helium content and fewer types of impurities. In the natural gas chemical industry in the United States, the proportion of helium in the waste gas left after the complete separation of methane, hydrogen and light petroleum gas has been greatly increased, and the concentration of raw gas is several times higher than that of other processes mentioned above.

In addition, this feed gas is particularly suitable for membrane processing, as the impurities contained in it can be easily separated by the HeNe separation membrane. In the case of switching to this raw gas, the cost of the traditional pure cooling and pressing method will not be reduced much, while the membrane combined extraction method can further reduce the cost and energy consumption of the refrigerator, in short, it is tailor-made and the cost advantage is more obvious. ”

The director listened, lifted his glasses, and his solemn expression gradually relaxed.

He'd heard it before, but he didn't react that quickly after all.

He drew inferences and asked: "So, this is a targeted optimization program specifically for the US Department of Energy, a customer? Because the Department of Energy is in charge of the chemical processing of a large number of US natural gas bonanzas, it is naturally suitable for integration with the upstream industrial chain? Can the Soviets also learn this trick?"

Director Bao explained: "Theoretically, the composition of the Soviets' natural gas mines in Turkmenistan is also suitable for this process - unfortunately, the Soviet Union will not respect intellectual property rights like Western countries and will not pay royalties." ”

The director nodded: "Then I will be relieved." ”

Heated negotiations continued late into the night. During the period, there were naturally many indescribable games, and there were also supplementary technicians from both sides who entered and exited many times and supplemented materials.

Eventually, when the door to the small conference room opened again, Lawrence saw his technical assistant looking like he was in a state of decay.

And although Gu Biao is also haggard, his spirit is completely different.

As for Auerbach's attaché, he whispered a few words, and then Auerbach unceremoniously said to Lawrence: "We are still willing to believe in the efforts of our own companies." But energy consumption is also a metric that we attach great importance to. No matter what technical means you use, I hope that in terms of energy consumption per unit of output, you can achieve the level of China.

You should think more about how to create customized and differentiated value for customers. Instead of having any ready-made obsolete products on hand, you have to sell them to harm customers and make them bear high energy consumption in the whole life cycle! They just save electricity than you!"

"It can't be...... It can't be ......" Lawrence was so stunned that his hands began to tremble.

Seeing this scene, the director finally put down his shelf excitedly, and kindly held Gu Fu's hand in person: "Comrade Xiao Gu!