Homo sapiens.

Chapter 332 The Wave ([-])

Australia.

Perth, the capital of Western Australia.

Inside BHP Billiton's office building.

Hank Maersk, who is in charge of the company's iron ore industry in Western Australia, looked very ugly: "The headquarters wants us to shut down 50% of our production capacity?"

The secretary nodded helplessly: "Yes, Mr. Manager."

With the notice of production reduction and layoffs sent by the headquarters, Hanke Maersk was very headache.

Hank Maersk has no right to refute the decision made by BHP Billiton headquarters. After all, the head office has no choice but to do so.

How can BHP Billiton close 50% of its production capacity if it can make money.

The reason for shutting down 50% of the production capacity is mainly because there is a spoiler in the international market at this time.

That's Homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens reorganized its internal mining and metallurgical industries after it was formalized.

Three mining subsidiaries, Emerald Mining, Coral Mining, and Nanyang Mining, and three metallurgical subsidiaries, Sea Snail Metal, Mandalay Metallurgy, and Sumatra Metallurgy, were established.

At the beginning, these two systems did not have much impact on BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Vale.

until September.

The completely integrated Homo sapiens Mining Department and Metallurgy Department began to form a group to attack BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale.

The Homo sapiens company's offensive is carried out in two aspects, namely the raw material market and the finished product market.

On the one hand, Emerald Mining, Coral Mining, and Nanyang Mining are fully exploiting Sulu Sea submarine hematite, Sumatra pyrite, and deep magnetite in the southern part of Mount Thanoi. These three iron ore producing areas have a total reserve of 173 billion tons of iron ore with an average grade of 43.6%.

If it is only mining iron ore, then the problem is not serious, after all, Homo sapiens' trade channels are blocked by Europe, America and the Far East.

But how could Homo sapiens only make one move.

Subsidiaries such as Sea Snail Metal, Mandalay Metallurgy, and Sumatra Metallurgy quickly lowered the ex-factory prices of finished steel products.

In September this year, the ex-factory price of steel in the world was around US$450-500 per ton for ordinary steel, while the CIF price of Australian iron ore with a grade of 62% was around US$120 per ton.

Homo sapiens' selected 62% hematite has a CIF price of 35 gold dollars per ton (equivalent to 70 US dollars per ton).

The ex-factory price of ordinary steel produced by Homo sapiens is 180 gold dollars per ton (equivalent to 360 US dollars per ton).

The impact of this price is very bad.

Because the steel profit margin of steel enterprises in Huaguo is only US$8-15 per ton, the profit margin of steel enterprises in other regions is also not high.

Europe, America and the Far East are stuck in the market channels of Homo sapiens, but it does not mean that the whole world listens to them, especially in the face of interests.

For example, oil tyrants in West Asia, once they made a good deal, found that the cost of purchasing steel from Homo sapiens can be reduced by about 20%.

I have a lot of gold and dollar foreign exchange, so why not choose Homo sapiens' steel products?Do you think there is too much money?
Another example is the cash-strapped African countries. They all obtained some gold dollars by selling mines and oil and gas. Naturally, they want to give full play to the cost performance of gold dollars.

South Asia, Central Asia, and Latin America also chose Homo sapiens steel products.

Even some European countries secretly import Homo sapiens' steel products and iron ore through intermediaries such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

As a result, the pressure has come to the major steel companies in the Far East. Will they give up the high-priced iron ore from Australia and Brazil, or continue to insist?

The first to make a choice was a group of steel companies in Huaguo. They reached an agreement with Homo Sapiens, that is, Homo Sapiens will provide iron ore at a processing fee of 125 gold dollars per ton of steel to help Homo sapiens produces steel.

Although the net profit is only about 5 gold dollars per ton, the benefit can be obtained from cheap iron ore supply.

As the world's rolling king, Huaguo Steel Enterprises played its role as the rolling king and directly lowered the global steel ex-factory price to an ultra-low price of only US$360-390.

And a chain reaction ensues.

You know, in 21 years, 60% of the iron ore in the international market was eaten by Huaguo steel companies, while the metallurgical subsidiary of Homo sapiens company took 21% of the iron ore share.

Together, the two accounted for 81% of the iron ore in the international market.

Now Homo sapiens fully adopts its own iron ore, and Huaguo steel companies are also forced to use Homo sapiens' iron ore.

All of a sudden, it lost 81% of the market share.

BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Vale suddenly experienced a large excess of production capacity.

Even if America restarted some steel production capacity in response to the threat of Homo sapiens, North America has already passed the stage of using iron ore smelting, and their steel plants mostly use scrap steel as raw materials.

More than 13 billion tons of iron ore overcapacity, how to break it?
This is simply unsolvable.

Among the remaining steel companies in the world, they simply cannot absorb 13 billion tons of iron ore. BHP Billiton's only option is to significantly reduce production and lay off workers.

Of course, they can also choose to mark down the price.

They can't beat Homo sapiens just by cutting prices.

According to the research reports of international organizations, the production cost of iron ore in Australia is about US$40 per ton, while that of Vale in Brazil is around US$60 per ton.

After adding the transportation cost, the CIF price of Australian iron ore transported to the Far East will come to around US$60 per ton, while the CIF price of Vale will reach US$90-100 per ton.

How does this price compete with Homo sapiens?
The ore production cost of Homo sapiens is extremely low, and the transportation distance is also close at hand. The CIF price of 35 gold dollars per ton actually has a 40% profit.

That is to say, once BHP Billiton and the others lower their prices, Homo Sapiens will definitely lower prices further.

As a last resort, BHP Billiton began to cut production and lay off staff.

Mines in Western Australia are bearing the brunt.

Hank Maersk has already felt the pressure and malice of Homo Sapiens. According to the current trend, the remaining 19% market share is actually in jeopardy.

After all, the steel plants in South Korea, Japan, and the European Union will certainly not last long.

Now Huaguo steel companies occupy the low-end international market, while Homo sapiens occupies the high-end market, making other steel companies cry.

Don't buy Homo sapiens' ore?

Then go to hell!
This is also the reason why some European steel factories secretly purchase Homo sapiens mines. They can only make choices in order to survive.

If it is a traditional international market, then BHP Billiton and their behind-the-scenes funders will definitely eat up all the low-priced iron ore directly through financial means, and then continue to maintain their market monopoly position.

However, when they met Homo Sapiens, the existence of Jinyuan directly blocked the possibility of manipulation by European and American financial capital.

After all, to purchase Homo Sapiens' iron ore, they need to prepare at least hundreds of billions of gold dollars.

Now there are only more than 3000 billion trade gold dollars circulating in the world.

European and American capital forces can't gather so many gold dollars at all, so naturally they have no way to snipe Homo sapiens' iron ore layout.

Even if they can collect so many gold dollars, Homo sapiens can play hooligans and directly restrict their purchases at that time, requiring them to be steel companies before they can be qualified for purchases, which can break the other party's conspiracy.

Facing this head-to-head confrontation, BHP Billiton felt extremely uncomfortable.

Now only by reducing production capacity and laying off staff can we barely stabilize the interior.

But production cuts and layoffs are just drinking poison to quench thirst.

There is no problem in not mining iron ore, but those large-scale mining equipment, ore dressing and washing, sintering equipment, heavy-duty railways, iron ore transport ships, etc. are depreciated all the time, and these expenses cannot be cut off.

As long as the production is stopped for a year and a half, these devices will become waste products.

What's more serious is that once industrial workers are lost, it will be very difficult to train them again.

As long as an industry stops production for more than 10 years, the supporting industrial workers, as well as the supporting majors of the school, may disappear directly.

This is also the problem faced by North America at this time. The hollowing out of their industries for decades has caused North America to lose a large number of industrial workers and supporting training systems.

　Thank you for your support (ω｀), and thank you for your rewards. I just had Yangkang in the past few days, and it will take a few days to add more.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)