Chapter 211 Port Issues
The fact that Zhiren Company was recruiting shipbuilding workers for the New Luzon Shipyard was not kept secret for long, and was soon discovered by the head of Samsung Heavy Industries at the Mingzhou Shipyard.
Although Samsung Heavy Industries is hostile to the New Luzon Shipyard in this matter, the problem is that they have no choice now.
After all, it was Samsung Heavy Industries itself that decided to close the Mingzhou Shipyard and lay off the employees there.
It’s impossible that the employees are now trying to find their own way out and Samsung Heavy Industries will still object, right?
If Samsung Heavy Industries really does this, it will have to continue to maintain the Mingzhou Shipyard, which is obviously impossible.
Therefore, Samsung Heavy Industries can only choose to watch this matter from the sidelines and can't do anything else at all.
The other side.
Malaysia reorganized its internal shipping business this year and established a shipping group. In fact, it is to integrate and reorganize the shipping resources in Malaysia that will be secretly controlled by Zhiren Company.
The newly formed Malaysian Shipping Group currently owns 8 LNG ships (deadweight tonnage of 670,000 tons), 7 tankers (deadweight tonnage of 830,000 tons), 32 container ships (deadweight tonnage of 2.32 million tons), 145 bulk carriers (deadweight tonnage of 1.22 million tons), and 86 other ships (deadweight tonnage of 410,000 tons).
Malaysia, one of the top ten LNG ship owners in the world, has bucked the trend this year and has no new shipbuilding demand for LNG ships. Instead, it has sold three of its LNG ships.
The reason why this happens.
The fundamental reason is that the Malaysian Shipping Group gave the shipbuilding orders to the New Luzon Shipyard, especially the newly added 8 methane transport ships, all of which were taken by the New Luzon Shipyard.
July 23, 21 years.
This year's sixth typhoon, "Yanhua", headed northward to Japan and avoided Southeast Asia.
A transport ship loaded with 80,000 tons of methane departed from the waters east of the Malay Peninsula in Malaysia and arrived at Yangcheng Port.
This methane tanker is the first methane tanker delivered by the New Luzon Shipyard to the Malaysian Shipping Group, and this is also the maiden voyage of the ship.
Zhao Xingmin, manager of the Lingnan branch of China Petroleum Corporation who is in charge of the natural gas unloading port, was currently conducting business negotiations with Zhu Ling, business manager of the Malaysian Shipping Group.
He took the shipping quotation sheet in his hand and found that the recent shipping quotation from Malaysia Shipping Group was quite acceptable.
The recent quotation for a standard LNG ship (with a transport capacity of 100,000 tons) is US$65,000 per day. The average shipping time from Malaysia to Yangcheng Port is about 5 days, and the transportation cost of a standard LNG ship is US$325,000.
The Malaysian Shipping Group's methane transport ship (with a transport capacity of 80,000 tons) is priced at US$50,000 per day, which is slightly cheaper.
However, Zhao Xingmin knew the other party's background.
"Manager Zhu, can the price be a little cheaper? How about 45,000 per day?"
He offered this price because he knew that the transportation cost of methane tankers is lower than that of LNG tankers. After all, they do not need to maintain ultra-low temperatures.
But Zhu Ling smiled and shook her head: "Manager Zhao, you are joking. 50,000 per day is already a friendly price. Other companies can't get this price, not to mention that you are also in benefit."
The two sides talked for more than half an hour, but Zhuling remained unmoved.
Fortunately, the Malaysian Shipping Group was quite sincere about the long-term contract and offered a price of US$42,000 per day. However, the contract was for three years and required at least 120 days of operation each year.
Zhao Xingmin had no objection to this. This time he sought cooperation with Malaysia Shipping based on the instructions of the headquarters and requested to lock in part of Malaysia Shipping's shipping schedule to cope with possible freight rate surges in the future.
In fact, this is also a common means for large energy companies to avoid risks. Once a short-term lease encounters an emergency, the freight rate may increase several times. Only long-term contracts can ensure the stability of transportation costs.
Seeking cooperation with Malaysia in shipping is not a whim of China National Petroleum Corporation, China Petrochemical Corporation and China National Offshore Oil Corporation, but a choice they made out of necessity after careful consideration.
Not only Malaysia Shipping, but also New Luzon Shipping has also signed many long-term contracts with the three giants.
After Zhao Xingmin signed a long-term transportation contract for three methane tankers, he and Zhu Ling and others observed the Reef methane tanker in the port.
Unlike conventional LNG ships, the deck of a methane tanker does not have a huge metal hemispherical structure, but a very flat container deck.
Similarly, the gas pipeline for unloading methane is different from that of LNG ships and does not require low-temperature maintenance equipment or secondary gasification equipment.
The LNG natural gas storage tanks at the port are all used for low-temperature liquefied storage. The stored low-temperature liquefied natural gas needs to be delivered to users. A safe heating and gasification equipment is installed in the middle to prevent the liquefied natural gas from gasifying suddenly and bursting the gas pipeline.
However, methane tankers output gas, and special low-temperature liquefaction equipment must be used to liquefy the natural gas before it can be input into the gas storage tanks at the port.
This is rather troublesome for the LNG port, but fortunately, China Petroleum Corporation had already considered this situation and therefore added a low-temperature liquefaction equipment at the port.
Fortunately, the shipping quotations from Malaysia Shipping and New Luzon Shipping are relatively low. After offsetting the two, there is no increase in costs.
Who doesn’t like it without increasing the cost too much?
This is one of the reasons why China’s three energy giants are interested in shipping to Malaysia and New Luzon.
If it weren't for the fact that New Luzon Shipyard's orders were already scheduled for 24 years, and that China had its own shipbuilding company that manufactures LNG ships, the three energy giants would all want to order more than a dozen methane tankers to add to their own transport fleets.
It’s a pity that this behavior is obviously somewhat "incorrect".
In addition, Sapiens' large-scale gas storage tank technology has also attracted the attention of major energy giants. After all, the storage of liquefied natural gas is too dangerous, and maintenance costs are also a problem.
Similarly, shipping companies all over the world are actually very interested in the methane tankers of the New Luzon Shipyard. However, its production capacity has been taken up by Malaysia Shipping and New Luzon itself, and other companies simply cannot allocate production capacity.
However, many shipping companies have begun to consider whether to continue purchasing LNG ships.
After all, this type of methane tanker, known as the "New Luzon Type" in the shipping industry, has a dual-purpose feature that is extremely attractive to shipping companies.
In particular, regions rich in oil and gas resources are often also underdeveloped manufacturing industries. While exporting oil and gas resources, they also need to import large quantities of food, daily necessities, and electrical appliances.
This just fills up the transport schedule of the dual-purpose transport ships, leaving no empty ship periods in between.
Why do shipping companies have a love-hate relationship with oil and gas tankers?
That’s because every time it transports goods, the ship has to go empty.
You should know that the unit transportation quotation of many container ships and dry bulk carriers is often less than half of that of oil and gas tankers. The reason is that cargo ships can transport full loads back and forth.
LNG ships have no way of transporting anything other than natural gas, which results in half of the shipping time being empty.
Therefore, the "New Luzon-type" transport ship has become the current star transport ship.
Zhao Xingmin looked at the container loading and unloading area on the deck of the Reef, turned his head and asked with a smile:
"Manager Zhu, has your company received the container waybill in Yangcheng?"
"Yes, it is a batch of containers to be transported to Siam. The company may then pick up another batch of containers in Siam and head to Kuala Lumpur, and finally go to the offshore oil fields on the Malay Peninsula to load a batch of methane. The whole trip will take about half a month."
"It seems that your company's shipping service is very popular!" Zhao Xingmin felt a little envious.
Zhu Ling smiled and shook her head: "It's just hard-earned money."
The demand for sea transportation in East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, and South Asia is actually much greater than that in North America.
If North America had not been deindustrializing in recent years, leading to the continuous decline of its manufacturing industry, its own resources and population would actually not need to import anything.
The situation is different in Asia.
Many regions in Asia have various deficiencies to varying degrees.
For example, in East Asia, the manufacturing industry is very strong, but the energy and resource gaps are also very large;
While West Asia is rich in energy, it has virtually no manufacturing industry;
South Asia has a large population and good agricultural resources, but its manufacturing industry is so-so , and there is also a huge gap in resources and energy;
Southeast Asia is the most comprehensive of the four regions, with population, agricultural resources, energy and mineral resources, as well as some low-end manufacturing industries.
If the shortcomings in manufacturing can be made up, Southeast Asia can basically achieve internal circulation.
In the future global landscape, no matter which force it is, if it wants to fight against North America, it must control Southeast Asia.
Without the support of the large region of Southeast Asia, no single force can confront North America alone.
