RPAGF #451 - New demands
#451 - New demands
Yandu.
Dawn Research Institute.
"Director Ren, our Materials Research Center has a critical shortage of rare metals, especially tantalum and niobium. The deficit is now irreparable," Professor Zhou Yunhe, head of the Materials Research Center, complained.
"We need more tantalum and niobium to meet the demands of various domestic industries."
"Didn't we already open two tantalum-niobium mines? How can there still be such a large shortage?" Ren Zhong asked, somewhat troubled. He had been working hard in the main world to find traces of various rare metals, and then pinpoint and exploit them in the Bright Sword world.
"There's no way around it; the demand is too high. Aside from everything else, the steel industry's alloy production alone can't get enough of these two rare metals. Our steel industry is developing too fast, already breaking through 60 million tons and heading towards 70 million tons. And the production of special alloys far outstrips the rest of the world. Our aerospace, shipbuilding, and nuclear industries all need large quantities of special alloys." As the highest person in charge of rare metal coordination in the country, the Materials Research Center is not only responsible for researching the smelting and production of these rare metals but also for developing new materials based on rare metal alloys and supplying rare metals.
Its subsidiary, Dongda Rare Metals Co., Ltd., controls most of Dongda's rare metal resources, production, and sales. In this regard, it has achieved unified procurement and sales.
Niobium and tantalum are two important rare metal elements with a wide range of applications.
Due to Ren Zhong's intervention, these two rare metals have shone brightly ahead of schedule.
Initially, in the steel industry, niobium and tantalum were often used as alloy additives to produce various high-performance alloys, such as heat-resistant, high-strength, and magnetic alloys. These alloys are important materials for manufacturing structural and protective materials for atomic reactors, nozzles for rockets and missiles, cutting tools, and other applications.
Niobium can significantly improve the strength, oxidation resistance, and weldability of steel. Adding 0.03% to 0.05% niobium can increase the yield strength of steel by more than 30%, so it is widely used in high-strength, low-alloy steel.
Secondly, in the nuclear industry, which Dongda started very early, niobium has a low capture cross-section for thermal neutrons, making it suitable for structural materials and cladding materials for nuclear reactors. For the Great Black Fish and the compact nuclear reactors that are now being promoted on a large scale, the use of nuclear power on amphibious assault ships has led to a significant increase in the number of nuclear reactors, which has also increased the amount of niobium used.
In addition to producing special alloys, tantalum's other main use is in the electronics industry, because using tantalum to make electrolytic tantalum capacitors has the characteristics of large capacitance, small leakage current, good stability, and long life. It is widely used in electronic computers, high-end electronic precision instruments, and other electronic products.
Because of these many uses, even though the country's tantalum-niobium mines have been excavated by Ren Zhong's golden fingers and the smelting technology of the main world has been introduced, it is still not enough.
And the main source of imports is Black Africa.
However, there is a problem now. In the current Bright Sword world, the two main producing areas have not yet had time to become independent.
What should I do?
Mist Capital.
Ambassador Jin visited Downing Street.
"You want to mine iron ore in Nigeria?" Harold, facing Ambassador Jin who came to visit, was a little surprised. "That's right, Dongda is now one of the top three in the global steel industry. In this regard, I really admire the speed of your country's development."
Harold didn't hesitate too much. "If you can solve the problem of ore transportation yourself, I can give the colonial authorities a greeting to handle the mining license for you. It shouldn't be a big problem."
"Then thank you for the Prime Minister's help. Due to the increasingly large domestic infrastructure construction in our country, the demand for steel is a bit large. We have also purchased a lot of iron ore in the Kangaroo Country, but it is still not enough. If the Nigerian iron ore can be mined, I believe it will also be very helpful to promote the local development of your country," Ambassador Jin said with a smile.
"We will pay resource taxes in accordance with international practice. The only small requirement is to hope to get some security in terms of safety, such as getting the protection of your country's army, and allowing our mines to have a certain degree of self-defense capabilities. Of course, this is self-defense under the coordination and management of local authorities."
Harold thought carefully for a while, and didn't feel that there was anything wrong with Ambassador Jin's words. The requirements put forward were also reasonable, so he nodded and agreed.
With the help of Ambassador Jin and the behind-the-scenes Dongda, John Bull and the Gallic Rooster in the Bright Sword world withstood the pressure this time and still controlled the canal. After all, in terms of law, their canal contract is still valid, and the martial power is also enough to directly suppress the populist sentiments of the Pharaoh. However, they also had to withdraw from the places occupied on the north bank of the canal and reach a new agreement with the Pharaoh in a relatively decent way. Not only did they retain the canal, but they also kept two military bases on both sides of the canal.
Compared with leaving the main world in a dispirited manner, this ending is naturally a thousand times better!
Even the crisis created by the rogue eagle selling the pound was quickly overcome.
Now the rift with the rogue eagle is well known.
They even approved more than a dozen million-acre plantation projects for Dongda to compete with the rogue eagle.
Of course, apart from this, the progress of other relations between the two sides is generally the same. After all, the historical entanglement between these two countries is too deep.
You can show your face, but you really can't turn your back on each other.
Harold didn't feel anything unusual about Dongda's proposal to open an iron mine in their colony.
It doesn't matter who the Nigerian iron ore is sold to. Harold doesn't think it's a loss to have someone turn resources into wealth.
Most of the matters on the permit have been resolved, but it is not easy to mine and transport it out.
Ambassador Jin went to Nigeria non-stop to conduct friendly consultations with local authorities.
In this consultation process, the most important thing is to build a railway from the iron ore to the seaport.
In the Midwest of Nigeria, there is a Jinji pegmatite-type rare metal metallogenic belt: There is an obvious NE-SW trending pegmatite belt in the metallogenic belt. The main minerals are pegmatite-type lithium ore, columbite-tantalite, and cassiterite. In addition, there is also a Jos-Bauchi rare metal metallogenic belt: This metallogenic belt is the only tin mining area in Nigeria. The main minerals are placer tin ore and columbite-tantalite placer ore.
Naturally, we will not mine gold mines and tin mines. This thing is also more conspicuous and easily targeted and disrupted.
However, both niobium-iron ore and niobium-tantalum iron placer deposits primarily contain iron ore. For most surveying engineers in this era, it is difficult to distinguish rare metals from iron ore.
Ordinary surveying companies today lack this capability, and the iron ore colony authorities are generally aware of this. However, limited by local conditions, transportation, and social production levels, without a large influx of external funds to build roads and mine the mountains, these resources cannot be transformed into wealth.
So, realistically speaking, if Dongda is willing to invest in exploiting these iron ore deposits, it would be a great thing for the colony authorities. With John Bull's current strength, such iron ore exploitation is somewhat of a double-edged sword. The large capital investment is far less appealing than mining in places like Australia, which seems much easier.
After all, the local population there is largely civilized.
In Black Africa, there are uncivilized tribes everywhere. Although the colony authorities' armed forces can silence most tribes, some tribes are different.
Either they produce intelligent individuals who want more, or these intelligent individuals usually don't live long.
After Ren Zhong coordinated with Staff Officer Ye, and upon hearing that the initial part of the matter had been settled, he learned that the final person responsible for implementation was still Ding Wei!
"Old Brother, it seems your bad idea is going to lock me up in Black Africa," Ding Wei couldn't help but complain when he saw Ren Zhong.
"Besides growing grain, now you're having me mine!"
The newly established Dongda International Mining (IMC) Company also has Ding Wei as its chairman.
According to Staff Officer Ye, capable people should do more work. Since Ding Wei has no problems with planting grain, it seems fine to have him do mining as well.
After all, Ding Wei is now well-versed in external expansion. Although the location has changed to a new one, and the field has switched to a new track, this matter is not a major problem for a leader. It feels like proper command is all that's needed.
"Mining is good. In the early stages, there are thousands of troops, which is especially exciting. If time permitted, I would have liked to bring in more people to indulge in the thrill of being a commander," Ren Zhong said with a smile.
"But Old Ding, you need to be careful about road construction. Don't let anyone cheat you. Since our road is a bit long, it's best to have them exchange land for free. Talk properly about jointly building this road. Our demand is to transport the ore back, and the authorities may want to operate passenger transport. We should use this difference in needs to strive for a 50-50 approach to building this road."
"Specifically, they provide the land, and we provide the machinery and labor. Then, both parties contribute equally to the materials. We should reduce our investment intensity according to this principle. After all, we have no guarantee of other benefits from this railway besides transporting ore."
Ding Wei nodded, lit a cigarette, and carefully considered and understood Ren Zhong's instructions.
Honestly, this is too professional. Given Ding Wei's background, it's really too big of a step across professions, a bit of a stretch.
Fortunately, someone with foresight is pointing the way. If it's purely operational at the implementation level, Ding Wei feels he can still handle it. If he had to think about making these things bigger and stronger himself, that would be a bit beyond Ding Wei's capabilities.
Mining requires road construction. For heavy items like iron ore, roads cannot meet the demand, and heavy-duty railways are essential.
The "Doghead" trains that Ren Zhong introduced to Dongda early on have long evolved into new E7-type diesel locomotives based on the E5-type diesel locomotive, increasing the total output power to 3000 horsepower, capable of pulling 110 carriages to transport more than 10,000 tons of coal or iron ore!
They have become the main model of heavy-duty trains in Dongda now.
Now, for mining in Nigeria, Ren Zhong has also selected this mature new Doghead heavy-duty train!
Dragging more than 10,000 tons of cargo, it can still reach a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour.
Of course, for passenger transport, the classic E5-type Doghead train is still a very ideal diesel locomotive, capable of operating fast trains at 100 kilometers per hour to meet passenger transport needs.
For these two types of trains, they are both mature models in Dongda. Although they are somewhat outdated compared to the current advanced models in the world, they have the advantage of being cheap and cost-effective.
A ten-million-ton iron ore mine only needs to run ten trips a day, which is enough. For railway transport, it can operate day and night, with 5 pairs of locomotive sets, plus ten pairs of carriages for loading and unloading, which can basically complete the annual transportation volume of ten million tons.
The distance from Lagos port in Nigeria to the mining area is about 500 kilometers. Currently, there is only a road connection and more than 200 kilometers of railway, but the specifications of this railway cannot meet the needs of heavy-duty trains, and it needs to be further改造 (gaizao - transformed/remodeled).
It is equivalent to re-building 500 kilometers of heavy-duty railway, which is naturally not low in cost.
If all the investment had to be converted into money, this amount of money would be a bit too much for Dongda's IMC to bear. But now, after division of labor and sharing, a foundation from the Rothschild family has undertaken the colony authorities' share of the investment, taking away 30% of the shares. The colony authorities took away 20% by providing land, and IMC Company invested in labor construction and 30% of the material costs, taking away 50% of the share.
After integrating funds from various parties and local strength, several engineering teams from Dongda followed a ten-thousand-ton giant ship with machinery and equipment and quickly invested in multi-line construction.
The route design work here was actually done earlier, but now the old empire is a bit declining. Before Dongda intervened in mining, they couldn't even raise the money for road construction.
Of course, there was even less money for mining.
So, even if these iron ore deposits had been detected long ago, there was no chance to turn them into money.
The engineering team from Dongda also does not have the problem of working for half a day and resting for half a day like those doing projects in Black Africa. Excavators, bulldozers, and road rollers are used in complete sets, and the daily progress of the project can be seen extending non-stop at a speed visible to the naked eye!
Even so, it is still a bit slow to solve the urgent need.
Therefore, while guiding the mining in the "Bright Sword" world, Ren Zhong has not given up on cautiously buying some high-purity tantalum and niobium materials in the domestic and international markets. The annual output of high-purity tantalum and niobium materials in the international market is several thousand tons, and it is still possible for Ren Zhong to cautiously buy a few tons in batches.
Through this channel, Ren Zhong now imports several hundred kilograms into the "Bright Sword" world every month, which, although cannot completely solve their needs, can greatly alleviate them.
This problem can only be truly solved after the mines in Black Africa are exploited. (End of this chapter)