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The night is misty, and the faint sconces shed a soft glow. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

After resting for a while, Zhai Danqing supported his body and complained: "I came to talk to you about work, but I didn't say anything, and people broke up for you," and said coquettishly, "I don't have the strength, you take me to the bathroom......"

"Let's go to the bathroom to talk about work......" Zhang Ke stopped Zhai Danqing's thin waist, held her in his arms, and walked towards the bathroom.

After nightfall, Zhang Ke and his team left the main camp of the exploration area and stayed in the town of Christmas Creek.

The town of Christmas Creek is unknown on the map of Australia, but the town has produced a big man Joyce as a member of the Australian Senate, and the town of Christmas Creek is often in the newspapers.

Fortunately, Senator Joyce is not an extreme environmentalist; On the contrary, he was very indignant that the two major miners, Rio Tinto, Bi and Billiton, controlled Western Australia's mining and controlled Western Australia's logistics system, resulting in the inability of Western Australia's mineral resources to be fully developed.

Australia's population of nearly 8 million square kilometers is only one-sixtieth of China's, and there is no irreconcilable contradiction between man and nature.

In the final analysis, the Joyce family's private land is not within the scope of the development of key mining areas of the two major miners of Rio Tinto and Bi and Billiton, and when the entire Western Australian economy is as dependent on mineral development as high as 90%, once it is not radiated by the two major miners of Rio Tinto and Bi and Billiton, the interests of the Joyce family will naturally be inadequately reflected.

The federal and local governments control about 90% of the land, but the remaining 10% is privately owned, mostly offshore fertile and easily accessible land.

The Joyce family owns large tracts of privately owned land not only in Christmas Creek, but also in Handland. Even if Kumho builds a deep-water seaport in Handland, a railroad system between Handland and Christmas Creek, and a large processing plant in Christmas Creek that does not occupy the Joyce family's land, the development of iron ore and the prosperity of trade, railroads, and port transportation will attract a large number of immigrants and increase the economic activity of small towns to unprecedented levels, which will inevitably bring huge benefits to the Joyce family.

When Zhang Ke arrived in Christmas Creek Town, Senator Joyce himself could not make it back from Melbourne, but the other members of the Joyce family still gave him a warm reception and invited Zhang Ke to stay in their family's holiday villa at night.

Zhai Danqing and Zhang Ke hugged each other and sat in the luxurious bathtub, looking at the charming night outside the window, Zhang Ke's annoying guy also asked her to straddle him, afraid that water would enter his body, and he didn't dare to let him move.

"The geological discoveries in the Christmas Creek exploration area are amazing, but Jia Zhiyi, Huang Mingsheng and others are surprised enough, but there are not many surprises!" Zhai Danqing pressed her smooth cheeks against Zhang Ke's chin, and her body was swollen against the hard object, and she didn't feel particularly awkward, but she had just been pushed up to the clouds, and she didn't have the strength to move, so the feeling of sitting was even more intoxicating.

"Now the FOB base price of iron ore is only US$26 per tonne, in addition to the mining area, mineral processing plants, we also need to build almost all the infrastructure, including power plants, water plants, railways, roads, deep-water seaports, etc., and the annual output of the Christmas Creek mine needs to reach 40 million tons in order to reduce the offshore cost to less than US$26 per tonne in real profit...... The plan we announced earlier was to produce 10 million tons of annual production, and the cost would be as high as $36 or $37 per tonne," Zhang Ke said seriously, "They may be worried that we will retreat." ”

With a reserve of one billion tons and an annual output of 40 million tons, it is almost saturated mining. Rio Tinto, Billiton and Billiton have been developing in Western Australia's major mining areas for 30 years, and their annual production is only 4,500 tons.

Kumho has a small scale of production, high costs, and a net loss every year, but who knows how much time it will take to develop an annual production scale of 40 million tons?

The best choice is to connect to the existing logistics system in Western Australia, save the huge construction cost of the logistics system, and reduce the unit cost of tens of millions of tons of mining area to about 26 US dollars to achieve profitability. It's a pity that Western Australia's existing logistics system such as railways, highways and seaports has been tightly controlled by the two major miners, Rio Tinto, Bi and Billiton, as well as the Japanese, European and American chaebols behind them.

In 88, Zhongzhi Company developed a joint venture with Rio Tinto to develop the Channa Iron Mine in Western Australia, and owned 50% of the interests in the Channa Iron Mine. As a joint venture project with Bantuo, the iron ore of Chana Iron Mine can be transported to China through the existing logistics system, and 3 million high-quality iron ore can be transported to China every year. Even so, the Chana Iron Mine has not brought much profit to Zhongzhi Company for so many years.

In addition, the price of ocean shipping from Western Australia to China is only $3.6 per ton of iron ore, and investing hundreds of millions of dollars to build a deep-water seaport dedicated to offshore iron ore is far from enough to pay financing interest from port revenues, let alone collect capital recovery costs.

It is no wonder that Jia Zhiyi, Huang Mingsheng and others are worried that Kumho will retreat.

"You're very confident!" Zhai Danqing thought of turning around and talking to Zhang Ke, but he was afraid of giving Zhang Ke a joke.

Zhang Ke rested his head on the head cushion on the side of the bathtub, Zhai Danqing moved twice, and his heart was also extremely beautiful.

Seeing that the momentum was too loud, Zhai Danqing was also a little embarrassed, so he straddled Zhang Ke's body and twisted his thin waist, twisted for a while, and refused to move again, saying: "I'm too tired, I still like to hear you talk about things at work......

"How did I find a workaholic?" Zhang Ke complained.

"You still have the face to complain, if every woman doesn't squeeze you dry?" Zhai Danqing said angrily.

"The word 'squeeze' is used very expressively...... Oh... Before Zhang Ke could laugh proudly, he pinched Zhai Danqing and shouted to surrender.

After bathing, Zhang Ke stood in front of the window in a nightgown, Zhai Danqing hugged him tightly from behind, and his face was meekly attached to Zhang Ke's shoulder.

"Don't talk about the outside world, Kumho also has great doubts about the iron ore investment in Western Australia, right?" Zhang Ke looked at the charming night outside the window and said softly.

"You are the king of Kumho, as long as your faith is firm, there is a mountain of swords and a sea of fire in front of you, and we will all follow you to rush forward......" Zhai Danqing said softly with his eyes closed.

"My reason is very simple, the purpose of Kumho Commercial's establishment is to balance the development of the industrial chain with the power of capital, industrial layout, profit and loss, if it is a unit of ten years, you must not only consider the immediate interests," Zhang Ke said lightly, the reason he can say is also very legitimate, Kumho has extended its tentacles to all corners of steel smelting, and it is impossible not to extend to the supply side of raw materials, "It is precisely because it is a trough period that the cost of large-scale entry can be minimized, Even if Mitsui Caishu, who has always regarded Kumho as a thorn in the flesh, may expect that Western Australia's mineral investment will eventually bring Kumho down at this time, if it were at another time, Mitsui Zaibasu would have been frequently dispatched to set up stumbling blocks for us......"

Now the iron ore market is in a trough period, and there seems to be no sign of recovery, the two major miners in order to balance the global iron ore price level, compress the iron ore production of Western Australia, so that the economy is completely dependent on mining in Western Australia in the local fiscal tax revenue and local residents employment greatly affected.

In addition to Perth, other small towns in Western Australia have been in decline for more than a decade due to lack of employment opportunities and low fiscal revenues, and young people from Christmas Creek Town and Handland Town have gone to big cities to find jobs and settle down.

For local governments, increasing local fiscal revenues and ensuring the employment of local residents and preventing the continued decline of small towns have become the primary tasks, and the most important means is to attract investment, and even in order to attract investment, local governments will engage in bad competition with local governments, and investors can often obtain excess benefits.

In the late autumn of last year, Kumho announced a billion-dollar mining investment plan through the Consulate General in Perth, which immediately received a positive response from Western Australia.

On the other hand, the iron ore market is at a low point, and Kumho's large-scale invasion has also distracted Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton's will to resist, and they may be more expecting the cutthroat market competition to teach Kumho a huge lesson, rather than rushing out to create more obstacles for Kumho to enter Western Australia's investment in the mining industry.

Zhai Danqing meekly put his face on Zhang Ke's shoulder, although the composition of Kumho's high-level lineup is very gorgeous, but this does not affect Zhang Ke's prestige within Kumho at all, whether to invest in Western Australian mining at this time, the final decision is still in Zhang Ke's hands.

"After deducting the reserved funds for other projects, Kumho Commercial still has more than 500 million US dollars," Zhang Ke tapped his finger lightly on the glass window, "enough to use here for a year and a half......

Zhai Danqing hugged his nervous waist and said with a smile: "There are many people waiting to see a good show, but I expect that the facts that will happen in the future will slap them in the face......"

"Have faith in me." Zhang Ke pulled Zhai Danqing in front of him and hugged her into his arms.

Of course, even if the global iron ore market is sluggish, there is no sign of recovery from China.

Since the increase in domestic steel production has entered the trough period in 96, the total output has increased by more than 10% until the end of 99, but with the domestic macro-control to strengthen investment in infrastructure, the reform of the housing welfare system for urban workers will promote the increase in commercial and residential consumption, the domestic steel market demand has become increasingly strong, steel prices have risen again and again, and the tight supply and demand of the steel market will sooner or later be transmitted to the upstream iron ore supply relationship.

On the other hand, the state has greatly relaxed the restrictions on the entry of private capital into the field of heavy industry in 99, and local large and medium-sized state-owned iron and steel enterprises have also started the process of privatization-based restructuring, which has provided more possibilities for domestic steel production to increase significantly in the coming period.

It's just that the world's major investment institutions are too conservative in predicting the future impact of China's economy, and the prospects for the steel industry are too conservative, who would have predicted that the demand for steel in the domestic real estate industry will exceed 300 million tons in another seven or eight years, and the global steel output is only more than 600 million tons at this time.

Once China's steel production and demand for overseas iron ore become the dominant factors affecting the global steel market and the supply price of the global iron ore market, Zhang Ke is very sure at this time that the offshore benchmark price of overseas iron ore will not be lower than 60 US dollars per ton.

China is not short of iron ore resources, relatively speaking, it is still very rich, but China's iron ore is mainly poor ore, the mining cost is extremely high, to achieve the basic needs of the domestic steel industry large-scale iron ore mining, the average mining cost is about 60 US dollars per ton.

Once Kumho's iron ore mining in Western Australia reaches a certain scale, the total cost of transportation to China can be controlled at about US$30 per tonne, which means that the gross profit from each tonne of iron ore in the future will be at least US$30, and the actual profit may be much higher than the benchmark of US$30.

Zhang Ke remembers that in the past, the offshore benchmark price of iron ore in Western Australia soared to nearly US$200 per tonne, and the price of ocean-going voyages from northern Australia to China soared from less than US$4 per tonne to US$50 per tonne, and even at the benchmark of US$60, the domestic steel industry would pay tens of billions of dollars a year for iron ore imports.

It is the development of China's steel industry that has caused the market value of a small listed company in Australia with a market value of less than 20 million Australian dollars to surge to 30 billion Australian dollars in just three or four years.

Zhang Ke is the kind of person who can sneak up on the company's shares at a maximum of 5%, and then pray that everything will follow the trajectory of history, and if everything goes well, he can make a profit of up to $1.5 billion.

Of course, Zhang Ke is not a person who is a little rich, especially at this time, he has the ability to change the course of history, the miracle created by the listed company, Kumho can completely replace it, once successful, it means that billions of excess profits can be obtained every year.

The most important thing is that once the international iron ore price soars too outrageously and the central government lacks more effective means, Kumho, which has become a major international iron ore supplier, will become the central government's main bargaining chip against the international miner giants and stabilize the international iron ore price.

Zhang Ke thought to himself, at this time, all aspects of the least resistance, is to dismantle the bed and sell the cabinet, but also to establish the logistics channel between Christmas Creek and Handland first, not to mention that Kumho Commercial can still squeeze out five or six billion US dollars available. After a year or two, as long as the international iron ore market improves slightly, financing will become simple.

In the next few days, Zhang Ke spent the next few days in Christmas Creek and Handland on field trips, and did not return to Perth until January 20. The exploration data in the Christmas Creek area was sufficient for Kumho to make the decision to develop the iron ore resources of Christmas Creek, and the preparatory work in the early stage was quite satisfying.

Zhang Ke lived in Perth for another four days, until the 24th, Ye Jianbin, Sun Shangyi and others arrived in Perth, officially on behalf of Kumho Corporation, signed a series of cooperative development agreements with the local government of Western Australia and business partners such as China Metallurgical Corporation, China Railway Construction, China Hong Kong Construction, Hongyuan Construction, Nanyang Shipping, Singapore Port Group, etc., and announced that the capital injection of Kumho Commercial (Perth) Company was increased to US$600 million, and the first capital injection of US$200 million was remitted to Australia on the day of the announcement of the decision. So that the outside world no longer has to speculate Kumho's determination to invest in Western Australia's iron ore.

When Hidezo Ikesa returned to RB during the snowy Hokkaido in late January, Mitsui & Co. was convening the senior management of its member companies in the snowy Hokkaido for its annual senior management meeting, which Hidezo Ikesa attended as the heir of the Ikesa family and the head of Mitsui & Co. China.

After a meeting one day, Ikesahide heard the news of Kumho's official investment in Western Australia's iron ore mine in the hot spring bath, and without delay, he quickly got up from the hot pool, intending to go to the people of Nippon Steel and ask them what they thought about the matter.

Ikesa Hidezo rushed to the room of Toshiyuki Tanaka, president of Nippon Steel Co., Ltd., and found that he was not the only one who came to visit Toshiyuki Tanaka at this time, but also Yasuo Mitsui, the senior executive director of Oji Paper, and a senior staff member of Nippon Steel who participated in the meeting.

Nippon Steel is one of the core members of the Mitsui Foundation, the largest steel company in RB and the fourth largest in the world, and has been actively infiltrating China since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Japan in the late 70s. Not only Baoshan Iron and Steel and Wenzhou Iron and Steel can see Nippon Steel's deep figure, even the Tokai United Iron and Steel Group has introduced complete sets of technical equipment from Nippon Steel, and almost all of the main core technical management personnel are trained by Nippon Steel, and the cooperation in the expansion project of the second phase of the 95th year of Tokai United Iron and Steel once made the relationship between the two sides develop to the extent of deep affection.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, on the eve of the signing of the cooperation agreement on the second phase of the East China Sea United Iron and Steel Project, that is, during the most critical negotiations, the members of the Japanese negotiation team led by Kio Takaka made a fuchun pavilion purchase in Jianye, which made the relationship between the two sides fall to a low point at once, and the Donghai Provincial Government under the auspices of Xu Xueping had a hard attitude and even did not hesitate to overturn all the previous negotiations with Nippon Steel.

Nippon Steel eventually had to replace all the members of the negotiation team and provide low-interest yen policy loans for Tokai United Steel to facilitate the smooth progress of the negotiations, although the second phase of the project was launched as scheduled, the Tokai provincial government presided over by Xu Xueping began to work hard to eliminate the traces of the new RB in Tokai United Steel, and this trend was still not maintained during the administration of Li Yuanhu, so that Kumho and Tokai United Steel were preparing to build a 10-million-ton steel industry base in Xinting, and the influence of Nippon Steel was completely invisible.

"From the perspective of industrial layout, Kumho's decision is the most important step," said Toshiyuki Tanaka, who likes the tea ceremony and pours tea for Ikesa Hidezo in a traditional RB kimono, "The only question at the moment is whether Kumho, the little snake, can swallow the whole elephant ......"

Even if Kumho's iron ore investment in Western Australia loses $100 million a year, Kumho can make up for the loss of $100 million from other links in this industrial chain (Kumho holds more than 25% of the cumulative shares in Nanyang Shipping, more than 70% of the shares in Dongshan Steel, more than 20% of the indirect shares in Donglian Steel, and more than 20% of the compound shares in Dongshan Port). Otherwise, he would never prefer to watch Kumho fend for himself there, as Toshiyuki Tanaka did.

Norio Taka had long recognized that Ye Jianbin, the co-president of Kumho Corporation, was one of the people who appeared at the scene during the Fuchun Pavilion Spring Buying Incident, and when Hidezo Ikesa left Toshiyuki Tanaka's room, he followed him out and called out to Hidezo Ikesa: "Hello Ikesa-kun, I'm Norio Otaka, Nippon Steel......

"......" Ikesa Hidezo looked at Takaka Kio with a puzzled look, nodded and said, "Nippon Steel's Otaka-kun, what are you looking for me?" ”

The Fuchun Pavilion Spring Buying Incident was not very glorious, but Takaka Kio still said: "I still remember that Ye Jianbin Corporation, the president of Kumho Corporation, was also present at the time, maybe it was not as coincidental as it seemed on the surface?" ”

"You're saying they had this grand plan five years ago?" Ikesa Shuzo asked.

"There should be a possibility," said Takataka Kio, "isn't it like the first step in implementing this plan to weaken Nippon Steel's influence in the East China Sea?" ”

"Wow!" Ikesa Hidezo was puzzled again, according to the information he had gathered, Zhang Ke was more like the leader of Kumho, but if Kumho had made a careful plan five years ago, Zhang Ke could not have been the leader at that time. At that time, Kumho's member companies did not have any scale, even if Zhang Ke's talent in business at that time had been fully reflected, but without strength, it was naturally impossible to persuade others to implement this plan with him as the main leader, "What is going on?" Ikesa Hidezo also felt more and more headaches.