Rebirth 99 to become a car giant.

Chapter 939: Mass production of LNG carriers subverts the industry landscape
Wenchong Shipyard used to be an inconspicuous existence in the Chinese shipbuilding industry.

After all, there are such prestigious entities as Hudong Shipyard and Dalian Shipyard, but it is not yet its turn to shine.

However, since cooperating with Nanshan Group companies such as Nanshan Equipment, the situation has begun to change.

Not to mention the several dredgers that are busy in the southern waters and are still playing a huge role. The electronic reconnaissance ship alone has brought everyone a huge surprise.

Today, there are still several electronic reconnaissance ships under construction in the dock of Wenchong Shipyard.

It can be said that in the field of special ship types, Wenchong Shipyard already has a place in the country.

Today is the launching ceremony of the LNG carrier that Wenchong Shipyard has high hopes for.

As a very difficult ship type in the shipbuilding industry, the demand for LNG carriers will become increasingly strong in the future.

The production orders for LNG carriers held by Samsung Heavy Industries in Korea have been scheduled for several years.

It can be said that as long as the production technology of LNG carriers is mastered, there will be no need to worry about life in the next ten years.

It's no wonder that Wenchong Shipyard was so focused on this project before.

"Mr. Cao, I'm so happy that you can come to participate in today's launching event."

"If it weren't for the various equipment provided by Yinwa Steel developed by Nanshan Special Steel and Nanshan Equipment, it would have taken at least five or six years for us to produce LNG carriers."

Although Xiang Jianghui was wearing work clothes today, he still looked in high spirits.

As a veteran in the shipbuilding industry, he is well aware of the significance behind the successful launch of the LNG carrier.

It can be said that from now on, Wenchong Shipyard will have a complete rise in the domestic shipbuilding industry.

The next step is to sit back and wait for various large orders to arrive.

"Mr. Xiang is being humble. Hudong Shipyard is already able to produce LNG carriers. If you follow the same path as them, you will be able to do it sooner or later. We just accelerated the process."

Be humble when you should be humble.

This is what China's business culture is like.

Therefore, Cao Yang is generally not so aggressive when dealing with state-owned enterprises.

no need!

"Yinwa Steel was monopolized by the French GTT in the past. The price is extremely expensive. The key is that if you want to place an order, you are not sure when the delivery time will be."

"Now that Nanshan Special Steel has acquired this special steel, Chinese shipyards will no longer have to worry about Invar steel when producing LNG carriers in the future."

"In the past, Yinwa steel cost more than 100,000 yuan per ton, but now it only costs 50,000 to 60,000 yuan per ton, and the price has dropped by half."

"Coupled with the falling prices of other ancillary equipment, at the same sales price, the profit of our LNG ships will be much higher than that of other shipyards."

Xiang Jianghui had quite a lot of exchanges with Cao Yang.

Wenchong Shipyard can produce LNG carriers.

But he doesn't intend to engage in a price war.

It is unnecessary to directly raise prices with other competitors because your own costs have dropped.

The global production of LNG carriers is now in short supply.

Previously, the price of LNG carriers produced by Hudong Shipyard was already cheaper than that of Samsung Heavy Industries. Wenchong Shipyard can maintain the same level as Hudong Shipyard.

This is actually Cao Yang's idea.

After all, he didn't want to force Nanshan Special Steel and Nanshan Equipment to continue to cut prices just because Wenchong Shipyard was setting prices there.

Anyway, the biggest demanders for LNG carriers are the tycoon countries in the Middle East. You are welcome to earn a little money from them.

Why do you make everything so cheap?
Others may not necessarily be grateful to you!

"Mr. Xiang, our first LNG carrier was built for Sinopec. Have the subsequent orders been placed now?"

Although the entire LNG carrier industry is in a situation where supply exceeds demand, Wenchong Shipyard, as a new player, will definitely have some customers worried.

This is also normal.

So at the beginning, it was obviously easier to expand domestic customers.

Especially since we are all state-owned enterprises, communication will be easier.

Even if there is no problem with my LNG carrier, if you would rather buy a high-priced ship from overseas, then you need to explain it carefully.

Besides, the only countries in the world that can produce LNG carriers are Korea, Japan and China.

Even if Sinopec wants to import LNG carriers, it doesn’t know how long it will take to deliver them.

Therefore, as long as they want to quickly develop their LNG business, they have to find domestic shipyards to purchase them.

The orders from the Hudong Shipyard have been scheduled for three years.

"Currently, we have reached an agreement with Sinopec on the construction order for a second LNG carrier. As long as there are no problems with the first one during use, they will add at least three more in the future."

“By then, we should have found some orders from other customers as well.”

As long as the LNG carriers produced by Wenchong Shipyard are actually put into operation, there will be no worries about buyers not being interested.

If you want to ask Samsung Heavy Industries to produce an LNG carrier that you think is of good quality and reliable, it may take five years to deliver the ship.

If you go to Wenchong Shipyard, the ship can be delivered in two years.

In this case, are you willing to take a little risk?
Time is money.

No one has trouble with money.

Without enough LNG carriers, no matter how large your production capacity is, you will not be able to sell it for money.

The wealthy people in the Middle East must be aware of this.

"That would be the best. We have prepared so many large docks and we have to fill them up as soon as possible."

"By then, Wenchong Shipyard will be able to become one of China's top three large-scale shipyards."

As an important platform for the technology implementation of Nanshan Group enterprises, many products of Wenchong Shipyard will use Nanshan Group's new technologies.

This is true whether it is an electronic reconnaissance ship or an LNG carrier.

In the future, Venus Technology is even planning to work with Wenchong Shipyard to research some more special warships.

These are all based on the premise that Wenchong Shipyard can develop rapidly.

Otherwise, if nothing works, Cao Yang will not seek cooperation with them.

Cao Yang and Xiang Jianghui communicated for more than ten minutes. The launching ceremony will soon begin. Xiang Jianghui, the boss, naturally has a lot to deal with.

So Cao Yang, Xie Lingyun and others simply found a seat and sat down, and thoroughly participated in the entire process of the launching ceremony.

Although this is not the first LNG carrier in China, it is the LNG carrier with the highest localization rate.

It is also the second domestic shipyard capable of producing LNG carriers, so China Channel also specially arranged for reporters to come for interviews.

These contents will also be broadcast in tonight’s news broadcast.

Of course, domestic peers like Hudong Shipyard naturally knew what was happening at Wenchong Shipyard without having to wait for the news broadcast.

"Minister Cheng, I heard that almost all the parts and materials of the LNG carriers at Wenchong Shipyard have been domestically produced."

"This means that the cost of the LNG carriers they produce may be tens of millions or even hundreds of millions lower than ours."

"If the other party starts a price war with us in the future, it will be very disadvantageous."

"You should contact their suppliers immediately and arrange for someone to go over and investigate to see if it is possible for us to localize Invar steel and various equipment."

Hudong Shipyard is one of the largest shipyards in China.

They even have the ability to produce aircraft carriers.

They were also the first to develop LNG tankers, so it can be said that they have very strong technical foundation.

However, in the field of LNG tankers, it seems that Xiang Jianghui is about to be surpassed by his younger brother, Wenchong Shipyard. Naturally, he does not want to see such an outcome.

Therefore, no matter from what perspective, further increasing the localization rate of LNG tankers at Hudong Shipyard is the next thing that must be done as soon as possible.

Otherwise, Hudong Shipyard will fall into a passive situation.

This is obviously not the situation that General Manager Zhao Linyuan wants to see.

"Their Invar steel is produced by Nanshan Special Steel. We have had contact with them, and they even provided us with some samples of their Invar steel."

"But if we use their Invar steel, we will probably not be able to pass some of the LNG carrier certifications of France GTT, which will result in us not being able to take on some overseas orders."

“So we haven’t taken action until now.”

Cheng Weidong was worried that Zhao Linyuan would feel that he, as the head of the purchasing department, was somewhat derelict in his duty.

After all, the group’s sister companies are all about to go into mass production, but Hudong Shipyard has not taken any action yet.

So he quickly came up with a reason that seemed to make sense.

First-class companies set standards!

In fact, many industries in China do not set their own standards.

The same is obviously true for LNG carriers.

Even the technical certification of Invar steel welding technicians on LNG carriers was done by France's GTT.

It is conceivable how passive China is when it comes to setting standards.

"If overseas users have any objections, then in the future, our overseas users' orders will use French GTT's Invar steel, and domestic users will use Nanshan Special Steel's Invar steel."

"We need at least 5000 million yuan to purchase Invar steel to produce an LNG carrier. In fact, this amount of money only buys a few hundred tons of Invar steel. This price is indeed a bit expensive."

“So it would be great if we could purchase from Nanshan Special Steel.”

Zhao Linyuan is under pressure now, so he is naturally more motivated to promote cost reduction.

Otherwise, Nanshan Special Steel had been in contact with Hudong Shipyard for such a long time and had provided a lot of samples, but there were no actual orders.

"This is a good idea."

Although Cheng Weidong was not very willing to look for Nanshan Special Steel, he still agreed.

The reason why France's GTT is able to monopolize the Invar steel business is certainly because the demand for this type of steel is relatively small, but they must have also done some work in some aspects.

For example, Cheng Weidong’s son was able to study abroad in a very good school in France with the help of France GTT.

You have to know that his son's grades are only good enough for him to get into a second-rate university in China.

This was when I took the college entrance examination in Shanghai. Now I have successfully entered a famous French university, which has a much better international ranking than many 985 universities in China.

If there is no trick here, no one would believe it.

Of course, Cheng Weidong didn’t particularly want to find Nanshan Special Steel. Apart from the fact that his son was studying abroad, Nanshan Special Steel was not very good at handling things.

Not to mention giving kickbacks directly based on sales, even just giving a little token of your appreciation during festivals is really just a token of your appreciation.

That definitely won’t work!

"Except for Invar steel, which was purchased from Nanshan Special Steel, what else was purchased from Nanshan-affiliated companies for the LNG carriers of Wenchong Shipyard?"

Zhao Linyuan knew that Cao Yang also attended the launching ceremony of the LNG tanker at Wenchong Shipyard today.

As the world's richest man and China's most famous entrepreneur, Cao Yang is very busy and likes to participate in various activities.

This is something that many people know.

But they still went to Wenchong Shipyard.

In Zhao Linyuan's opinion, this is definitely because many key parts and materials on LNG tankers are purchased from Nanshan companies.

Rather than saying that this LNG carrier was produced by Wenchong Shipyard, it would be more appropriate to say that it was commissioned by Nanshan-affiliated companies to produce the ship.

"In addition to Invar steel, there are also some special steels for ships."

"The high-power gas turbine is also said to be purchased from Nanshan Engine, and a lot of equipment on the ship is purchased from Nanshan Equipment."

“It can be said that many key technologies are backed by the shadow of Nanshan-affiliated companies.”

After Cheng Weidong's explanation, Zhao Linyuan couldn't help but nodded.

This logic makes sense.

After all, they all belong to the same group, and he is very clear about the situation of Wenchong Shipyard.

According to Cheng Weidong's judgment, Wenchong Shipyard will not be able to have the design and production capabilities of LNG tankers before 2020.

But now it has been greatly advanced.

"We all belong to the same group. I think we can communicate with each other. When competing for orders, we should not blindly quote prices. We should differentiate ourselves in terms of service."

Cheng Weidong must be very afraid that Wenchong Shipyard and Hudong Shipyard will engage in a price war.

Because such cost pressure will definitely fall on him as the head of the purchasing department.

Therefore, it is best for everyone to communicate, form a tacit understanding, and accept orders at a unified price.

Originally, Cheng Weidong thought that this request would be difficult to achieve.

After all, if he were the general manager of Wenchong Shipyard, he would probably start lowering prices immediately to grab orders.

Especially when you are just entering the market, if you don’t have some killer features to attract users, why would they ask you to produce their ships?

You know, the price of an LNG tanker is hundreds of millions of dollars.

The profit here is not low at all.

There’s no one who wouldn’t want to take a bite.

"Tomorrow."

"I'll call Xiang Jianghui tomorrow morning so we can all come to a consensus."

Zhao Linyuan knew that Cheng Weidong's proposal made sense, so he accepted it immediately.

Compared with the situation at Hudong Shipyard, the situation at Samsung Heavy Industries is completely different.

"President, there are already two shipbuilding companies in China that can produce LNG carriers. This will seriously threaten our interests."

As the sales director of Samsung Heavy Industries, Choi Dong-lai naturally pays close attention to industry trends.

At present, the global LNG transport ships are mainly divided among Samsung Heavy Industries, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Heavy Industries, and other competitors can basically be ignored.

However, on the Chinese side, Hudong Shipyard and Wenchong Shipyard, both subsidiaries of CSSC, began to produce LNG tankers.

This immediately made Cui Donglai feel the crisis.

Although in the short term, China's LNG tanker production capacity and order quantity cannot be compared with those of Korean companies.

However, considering the amazing achievements of China's various industries in the past, Cui Donglai felt it necessary to give a detailed report to President Zheng Ze.

Otherwise, it would be embarrassing if you lose the order for unknown reasons in the future.

This kind of thing is definitely possible.

"Huaxia's LNG carrier production technology level is still relatively low, and the production cost of the ship is estimated to be higher than ours."

"If they hadn't relied on lowering their profits, it would have been impossible for them to offer a price lower than ours."

Obviously, Zheng Ze is not very worried about the threat from China.

LNG carriers are not easy to produce.

Although it is a labor-intensive industry, it is also a technology and capital-intensive enterprise.

For example, Samsung Heavy Industries conducted a special investigation into the LNG tankers previously produced by Hudong Shipyard.

The result is that it is found that the production cost of Hudong Shipyard is likely to be higher than theirs.

After all, apart from the higher labor costs of Samsung Heavy Industries than Hudong Shipyard, other costs are not necessarily higher.

Even because Samsung Heavy Industries has more experience in producing LNG carriers, it is not surprising that it does better in some aspects.

"It was like this before, but I heard that the LNG carriers produced by Wenchong Shipyard this time have all kinds of materials and equipment that are highly domestically produced."

"And the other party has close cooperation with Nanshan Group companies, so I think it needs to be taken seriously."

After Cui Donglai said this, Zheng Ze actually became more interested and alert.

The competitive relationship between Nanshan Group’s companies and Samsung Heavy Industries was relatively weak before.

But it was a life-and-death fight with Samsung Electronics.

The entire Samsung Group knows that Samsung Electronics has suffered huge losses in China. Even Samsung’s mobile phone sales in China have fallen to a horrible level.

In this case, Samsung Group will be on high alert whenever it comes to companies related to the Nanshan Group.

"What materials, equipment and parts did the Nanshan Group companies provide for the LNG carriers? Please investigate this information as soon as possible and report to me specifically."

After his attitude changed, Zheng Ze naturally began to arrange for Cui Donglai to conduct various investigations.

If the Nanshan Group's companies really get deeply involved in the LNG tanker field, then the entire industry structure may be overturned by the other party.

Zheng Ze also has this kind of awareness.

There is no way. After all, even Samsung Electronics suffered a huge loss. Its mobile phone, computer and semiconductor businesses have been completely defeated in China. Zheng Ze absolutely dare not take it lightly.

After all, the situation this time is different from that at Hudong Shipyard.

……

In addition to Hyundai Heavy Industries and Daewoo Heavy Industries, the French GTT is in a similar mood to Samsung Heavy Industries.

Although they already knew that Nanshan Special Steel had developed Invar steel, some related information had also been widely reported on the Chinese Internet.

But research and development is one thing, and when it can be truly used on LNG tankers is another concept.

So although the French GTT took it a bit seriously before, they were not particularly worried.

But now that Wenchong Shipyard has successfully produced LNG ships, the situation is naturally completely different.

"Antoine, I have confirmed that the LNG carriers produced by Wenchong Shipyard are indeed made of Invar steel from Nanshan Special Steel, and the supporting gas storage system is provided by Nanshan Equipment."

"It can be said that the other party completely ignored us. This is a complete subversion of past practices and is absolutely unacceptable."

In the past few years, more than 90% of the world's LNG carriers have used Invar steel and tank design solutions from France's GTT.

So even though their company is not very big and is not well-known globally, they are living a very comfortable life.

Many employees in the company work no more than 180 days a year, and their working hours per day are less than 6 hours.

The key point is that their salary is very high even in France.

It is conceivable how nervous the people at the French GTT would be once this situation is challenged.

“Victor, do you think other companies will follow the Wenchong Shipyard’s plan?”

Antoine's expression was also a little solemn.

Naturally, he was also very clear about the impact of this matter.

For a wooden barrel, the only thing to worry about is that one of the boards is broken, which will affect the entire situation.

Now the troublemaker, Wenchong Shipyard, has appeared. This is a situation that Victor and Antoine do not want to see at all.

"It is estimated that the companies in Goryeo will not follow suit in the short term. After all, they cannot accept importing Invar steel and other supporting parts and equipment from China."

"But it's hard to say about China. The LNG carriers produced by their domestic shipyards are likely to use this solution."

Based on his work experience, Victor quickly gave his own judgment.

But this opinion was obviously not what Antoine wanted to hear.

"The Chinese love to dump goods. We have to find a way to stifle the development of their LNG carriers."

"Otherwise, many things in this industry will no longer count if we say so."

When you are used to being the boss, and suddenly your position is threatened, you will definitely not be able to accept it.

Antoine was obviously preparing to do something.

This is also the habitual reaction of many European and American companies when they are impacted by Chinese companies.

When one airplane is exchanged for 100 million shirts, they will definitely not complain that the price of Chinese shirts is too low or that they are engaging in dumping. They wish the price of shirts could be even lower.

However, once Chinese companies start producing machinery and equipment and high-end materials, which are the traditional strengths of European and American companies, their opinions will be completely different.

As long as the price of China's related products is lower, it is dumping and disrupting the market order.

They need to find ways to suppress it and cannot allow Chinese companies to develop.

This kind of double standard is all too normal in European and American companies.

To put it bluntly, only I can live a good life, but you can't!

(End of this chapter)