Homo sapiens.

Chapter 210 Shock
the other side.

After more than two years of capacity expansion.

New Luzon Shipbuilding Company has formed an annual shipbuilding capacity of 700 to 800 million deadweight tonnages, and can produce everything from various inland river boats to transport ships with a load capacity of 10 tons.

Especially this year, due to the application of new materials, coupled with the precision parts and large gas turbines that can be produced by itself, the shipyard has basically achieved 96% localization of parts and components.

Except for some electronic equipment, other spare parts can basically be produced by themselves.

In fact, in terms of electronic equipment, shipyards only use it on civilian ships. Military ships are all biochips and biosensors, and do not use imported electronic equipment.

As the current three shipbuilding swordsmen in the world, South Korea, Huaguo, and Dongying 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 largest shipyard in the world.

Although Luzon's shipbuilding capacity is less than one-fifth of South Korea's.

But Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo did not underestimate the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company. On the contrary, they have already regarded it as a huge threat at this time.

Especially Samsung Heavy Industries, whose core business is the production of LNG carriers.

Park Xiaoying, vice president of Samsung Heavy Industries, is at the shipyard on Geoje Island.

But this time he didn't come to investigate shipbuilding, he came to one of the ship technology research and development departments.

Pu Xiaoying looked at the gas cylinder in front of her eyes: "This is the special gas storage material developed by Luzon people?"

"Yes, vice president." Li Changtai, the chief engineer of the LNG project, replied with a solemn expression.

In fact, since Homo sapiens launched the gas cylinder containing crystal sponge in Luzon, it has attracted the attention of all parties, especially related companies.

Since Luzon is an archipelagic country, those who tried to smuggle gas cylinders containing crystal sponge disappeared quietly in Luzon after being fished.

Therefore, although many forces know of the existence of this technology, no samples have been obtained.

It was not until some time ago that Homo sapiens established a joint venture in Siam and Malaysia that some gas cylinders were smuggled out.

It was at this time that Samsung Heavy Industries obtained samples of the 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 that of liquefied natural gas, but this is not the key point. The material doesn't need to be maintained at low temperatures, or at high pressures."

Pu Xiaoying is not a novice, so she naturally knows what this means: "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 in the transportation process of the LNG ship, that is, the low temperature and sealing must be kept uninterrupted.

Once the low temperature cannot be maintained, the entire ship of liquefied natural gas will expand rapidly.

At this time, the LNG ship has two choices, either deflate and release the gasified natural gas into the atmosphere; or wait for the expanded natural gas to blow up the entire ship.

And this kind of uninterrupted low-temperature liquefaction transportation must be equipped with special refrigeration equipment, and ordinary refrigeration equipment cannot be used at all.

Specialized ultra-low refrigeration equipment, which can be used in ultra-low temperature environments, non-deformable invar steel storage tanks, sophisticated monitoring systems, and supporting power generation and distribution systems (prepare at least two sets).

In addition, the production of LNG ships also faces a patent issue.

Regardless of the major shipyards in South Korea and Huaguo, they occupy more than 90% of the global market share in the LNG carrier market, but they may not necessarily be profitable.

Park Xiaoying is very clear about this situation. Samsung Heavy Industries' profit on LNG ships is only about 5% of the order price.

Taking a large LNG ship costing US$2 million as an example, Samsung Heavy Industries earned US$1000 million per ship.

However, Samsung Heavy Industries has to pay a patent fee of about US$1000 million to GTT in France. This is not a one-time buyout, but a patent fee equivalent to about 5% of the order price for an LNG ship.

This patent fee has to be paid. After all, GTT’s natural gas cryogenic containment system technology is the core technology of the current LNG ship. Any ship company that wants to build an LNG ship and operate it globally must pay this money obediently. .

Now when another technical route is in front of us, it is no wonder that Samsung Heavy Industries, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Daewoo Shipbuilding and other shipbuilding companies pay so much attention to it.

"Chief engineer Li, can that kind of gas storage material be imitated?"

"Sorry, I have discussed with the material laboratory for more than half a month, and the material laboratory said that mass production is not possible." Li Changtai looked a little frustrated.

Pu Xiaoying frowned: "Why can't it be imitated on a large scale? Are special raw materials used? Or rare elements?"

But Li Changtai's next words made Pu Xiaoying's heart feel cold:

"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 similar nanostructures. The problem is that it cannot be mass-produced, especially It’s mass-produced at low cost.”

Park Xiaoying recalled the intelligence of the commercial investigation department and found that the application scenarios in Luzon, Hongshawadi, Siam and other places can indeed show that the production volume of this gas storage material is very large.

The gas storage materials produced by Homo sapiens are not only used on methane transport ships, but also large methane storage tanks in ports and cities, large storage tanks in methane fermentation plants, vehicle-mounted gas storage cylinders, and large storage tanks in thermal power plants. Gas tanks, small gas storage cylinders for daily use by residents, gas storage cylinders for emergency power generation, etc.

Such a huge production volume, if the production cost is too high, obviously it will not be put into commercial application so soon.

"Based on the gas storage material we imitated in the laboratory, its production cost is about US$273 million per cubic meter. Even in large-scale production, it is difficult to reduce the cost per cubic meter to less than US$50."

Hearing the cost, Park Xiaoying immediately gave up.

According to the transportation volume of 10,000+ cubic meters of LNG ships, if we want to switch to new gas storage materials, it will take about 20 cubic meters.

Not to mention $50 per cubic meter, even if it is $5 per cubic meter, Samsung Heavy Industries can't afford it.

They are there to make money, not lose money.

Such a high cost of imitation of gas storage materials has destined a series of shipyards such as Samsung Heavy Industries to be unable to imitate gas storage materials by themselves for a long time to come.

But Park Xiaoying saw a huge crisis.

Now the methane carriers of the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company have appeared in groups in Southeast Asia and the Ceylon Ocean.

According to the data of the International Shipping Agency, there are currently 173 methane carriers under the New Luzon Shipping Company. Although most of them are dual-purpose carriers with a displacement of about 2 tons, their total tonnage has exceeded 530 million. Ton.

What's more, in Pu Xiaoying's view, the threat of the dual-purpose transport ship is even higher.

After all, when the LNG ship produced by Samsung Heavy Industries goes to West Asia to transport natural gas, it must go there empty, and go to the destination empty. On the journey of five or six thousand kilometers, it is basically empty.

However, the ships of the New Luzon Shipping Company can transport a large amount of goods to the Persian Gulf, and then transport methane back.

This is equivalent to going back and forth, all in the process of transportation, there is no gap period, and there is no need for a low-temperature containment system, and the cost has dropped by a large amount.

No wonder Pu Xiaoying is facing a big enemy. The transportation cost advantage of New Luzon is too obvious, and it will inevitably form a huge pressure on LNG ships.

If this problem cannot be resolved as soon as possible, then Samsung Heavy Industries' business in LNG carriers will come to an end sooner or later.

In fact, Samsung Heavy Industries has been affected to a certain extent.

Originally, Samsung Heavy Industries planned to abolish the Mingzhou Port Samsung Shipyard in China in September this year, but now it has been brought forward to July because the business of the shipyard has decreased.

After thinking about it for a long time, Pu Xiaoying decided to contact the heads of companies such as Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Shipbuilding to discuss how to deal with the threat of New Luzon.

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(End of this chapter)