Chapter 209 Impact
The other side.
After more than two years of capacity expansion.
The New Luzon Shipyard currently has an annual shipbuilding capacity of 7 to 8 million deadweight tonnage, and can produce everything from various inland boats to 100,000-ton transport ships.
Especially this year, due to the application of new materials and the ability to produce precision parts and large gas turbines by itself, the shipyard has basically achieved 96% localization of parts.
Except for some electronic equipment, other spare parts can basically be produced by ourselves.
In fact, in terms of electronic equipment, shipyards only use it on civilian ships. Military ships are equipped with biochips and biosensors, and no imported electronic equipment is used.
As the three major shipbuilding powers in the world today, South Korea, China and Japan have now attached great importance to Luzon, a newly emerging shipbuilding force.
For example, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding, and Samsung Heavy Industries at this time.
These three South Korean shipbuilding giants are also among the top ten shipyards in the world, especially Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is the world's largest shipyard.
Although Luzon's shipbuilding capacity is less than one-fifth of South Korea's.
However, Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo did not underestimate the New Luzon Shipyard. On the contrary, they now regarded it as a huge threat.
Especially Samsung Heavy Industries, whose core business is the production of LNG tankers.
Park Hyo-young, vice president of Samsung Heavy Industries, is at the shipyard on Geoje Island.
However, this time he did not come to inspect shipbuilding, but to one of the ship technology research and development departments.
Park Xiaoying looked at the gas cylinder in front of her and said, "Is this the special gas storage material developed by the people of Luzon?"
"Yes, Vice President." Li Changtai, chief engineer of the LNG project, replied with a serious expression.
In fact, ever since Sapiens launched gas cylinders containing crystal sponge in Luzon, it has attracted the attention of all parties, especially related companies.
Since Luzon is an archipelago country, those who tried to smuggle gas cylinders containing crystal sponges were lured away without a trace in Luzon.
Therefore, although many forces know of the existence , they have never been able to obtain a sample.
It was not until some time ago that the Sapiens Company established joint ventures in Siam and Malaysia, which led to some gas cylinders being smuggled out.
It was at this time that Samsung Heavy Industries obtained samples of crystal sponge through smuggling channels.
Li Changtai continued, "Vice President, this special gas storage material can store more than 500 kilograms of methane per cubic meter, which is slightly lower than liquefied natural gas, but this is not the key point. The most important point is that this material does not need to maintain low temperature or high pressure."
Park Xiaoying was no novice, so she knew what this meant. "In other words, the other party's gas storage and transportation costs will be lower than our LNG ships?"
"Yes, there is no doubt about it." Li Changtai was very sure.
As the chief engineer of the LNG ship, he is well aware of the difficulties faced by LNG ships during transportation, which is that they must maintain low temperature and sealing at all times.
Once the low temperature cannot be maintained, the entire ship's liquefied natural gas will expand rapidly.
At this point the LNG ship has two options: either deflate and release the vaporized natural gas into the atmosphere, or wait for the natural gas to expand and blow the entire ship up into the sky.
This kind of uninterrupted low-temperature liquefied transportation must be equipped with special refrigeration equipment, and ordinary refrigeration equipment cannot be used at all.
Specialized ultra-low temperature refrigeration equipment, Invar steel storage tanks that will not deform in ultra-low temperature environments, sophisticated monitoring systems, and supporting power generation and distribution systems (at least two sets must be prepared).
In addition, the production of LNG ships also faces a patent issue.
Although the major shipyards in South Korea and China occupy more than 90% of the global market share in the LNG ship market, they may not necessarily make a profit.
Park Xiaoying is well aware of the situation in this regard. The profit of Samsung Heavy Industries on LNG ships is only about 5% of the order price.
Taking a large LNG ship costing US$200 million as an example, Samsung Heavy Industries only makes US$10 million from one ship.
However, Samsung Heavy Industries has to pay a patent fee of about 10 million US dollars to the French company GTT. This is not a one-time buyout, but a patent fee equivalent to about 5% of the order price for each LNG ship.
This patent fee has to be paid. After all, GTT's natural gas cryogenic containment system technology is the core technology of current LNG ships. Any shipbuilder who wants to build LNG ships and operate them globally has to pay this money.
Now that another technical route is presented to us, it is no wonder that shipbuilding companies such as Samsung Heavy Industries, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Daewoo Shipbuilding attach so much importance to it.
"Chief Engineer Li, can that gas storage material be imitated?"
"I'm sorry, I've discussed this with the materials lab for more than half a month, and they said they can't produce it on a large scale." Li Changtai looked a little frustrated.
Park Xiaoying frowned. "Why can't it be copied on a large scale? Is it because of special raw materials? Or rare elements?"
But Li Changtai's next words made Park Xiaoying's heart chilled:
"From the results of material analysis, this gas storage material is a new material formed by biological nanostructures. If it is a laboratory-level replica, we can create a similar nanostructure. The problem is that it cannot be mass-produced, especially at a low cost."
Park Xiaoying recalled the intelligence from the business investigation department and found that the application scenarios in Luzon, Hongsawadi, Siam and other places indeed showed that the production volume of this gas storage material was very large.
The gas storage materials produced by Zhiren Company are not only used on methane transport ships, but also in large methane storage tanks in ports and cities, large storage tanks in methane fermentation plants, on-board gas cylinders in cars, large gas tanks in thermal power plants, small gas cylinders for daily use by residents, and gas cylinders for emergency power generation.
With such a huge production volume, if the production cost is too high, it will obviously not be put into commercial use so quickly.
"The production cost of the gas storage material we have simulated in the laboratory is about US$2.73 million per cubic meter. Even if it is mass-produced, it is difficult to reduce the cost per cubic meter to less than US$500,000."
After hearing the cost, Park Xiaoying gave up immediately.
According to the LNG ship's transport capacity of more than 100,000 cubic meters, if new gas storage materials are to be used, it would require approximately 200,000 cubic meters.
Not to mention US$500,000 per cubic meter, Samsung Heavy Industries can't even afford it if it's US$50,000 per cubic meter.
They are in business to make money, not to lose money.
The high imitation cost of gas storage materials means that a series of shipyards such as Samsung Heavy Industries are destined to be unable to imitate gas storage materials themselves for a long time to come.
But Park Xiaoying saw a huge crisis.
Now, the methane transport ships of the New Luzon Shipyard have appeared in large numbers in Southeast Asia and the Ceylon Ocean.
According to data from international shipping agencies, there are currently 173 methane transport ships under the New Luzon Shipping Company. Although most of them are dual-purpose transport ships with a displacement of about 20,000 tons, their total tonnage has exceeded 5.3 million tons.
What's more, in Park Xiaoying's view, the threat posed by such dual-purpose transport ships is even greater.
After all, when the LNG ships produced by Samsung Heavy Industries go to West Asia to transport natural gas, they can only go empty-handed. If they go to the destination empty-handed, the journey of 5,000 to 6,000 kilometers is basically a waste.
However, the New Luzon Shipping Company's ships can transport large quantities of goods to the Persian Gulf and then transport methane back.
This means that the goods are in the transportation process both ways, and there is no idle period. In addition, there is no need for a low-temperature containment system, which reduces the cost significantly.
No wonder Park Xiaoying felt like she was facing a great enemy. The transportation cost advantage of New Luzon is too obvious, which will inevitably create huge reverse pressure on LNG ships.
If this problem cannot be solved as soon as possible, Samsung Heavy Industries' LNG ship business will be doomed sooner or later.
In fact, Samsung Heavy Industries has been affected to a certain extent.
Samsung Heavy Industries originally planned to close down the Samsung Shipyard in Mingzhou Port, China in September this year, but now it has been brought forward to July because the shipyard's business has decreased.
After thinking for a long time, Park Xiaoying decided to contact the heads of Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding and other companies to discuss how to deal with the threat from New Luzon.
