023 : Rice-shaped pellets
next day,
Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.
“Let’s eat and eat.”
Someone rang the lunch bell.
“Is it lunchtime already?”
I haven’t been able to do anything all morning, but time has passed.
After thinking all night last night, I couldn’t decide whether or not to meet Van Flint.
Perhaps, during the Korea-US summit, he visited to discuss how much loans to give to the Ulsan petrochemical complex.
Originally, even in history, he was a nobleman who made the US government approve a super-large loan of 150 million dollars.
Looking at it, it seems that the nobleman David wanted to introduce was also Van Flint.
David also called him and said that he was a great man.
“I must have aroused the nobleman’s curiosity…”
It seemed that he had heard me once through David, and heard about me once more from Branch Marlton.
If it weren’t for that, would such a tycoon even leave a phone number saying that he would see me?
“Boss, enjoy your meal.”
“Ah, yes. Eat a lot and work hard.”
“thank you.”
An employee passing by greeted me.
He told me to eat a lot and cheer up.
In this era, it was a virtue to eat a lot.
Abandoned factory… No, Daesae Chemical has become a factory in its own way.
Only skilled technicians were selected and selected as employees, and many technicians from chemistry or physics departments were also selected.
In all, there are close to 200 people.
The restaurant was built with a frame made of steel beams and stacked with cement blocks.
It would have been better if it was made by stacking containers with insulation inserted, but there were no containers yet.
“Chansu! No, boss! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all morning.”
“Oh, Sambok! What’s going on in Ulsan? No phone?”
Sambok was waiting in front of the restaurant.
It was nice to see his face after a long time.
“Ugh, why didn’t you pay for the restaurant lady’s meal vouchers while paying the employees’ salaries? He called me directly.”
“Did I make that mistake? The lady also really… says something.”
“It must have been difficult to tell you. It seemed that he suffered alone. I paid 2.8 million won by paying bank interest.”
“Haha, well done. After all, you are my friend.”
It was a very good thing to leave Sambok as the accountant.
If I didn’t, I would have become an evil dealer.
“Do you know how the company works? Don’t you see the settlement report I send every week?”
“Why am I seeing that? do you see it?”
Counting money takes more time than you think.
You have to use your heart to analyze it.
I’d rather work one more minute or sleep one more minute than spend my time there.
I should focus on making money, not counting money.
“You have to figure out whether it’s a deficit or a surplus, and what your main expenses are. You are the boss.”
“Can there be a deficit? Isn’t our business going very well? A lot of dollars are coming in from Singapore.”
If it was in the red, Sambok would have jumped up and down.
What I care about these days is investing in the right place.
“Miss Lee! I knew it!”
Pak!
“mind! What are you doing! It hurts, bitch.”
Sambok has been hitting headbutts all of a sudden.
“Business is going well. very! very! It’s ridiculously good. But, your spending is even more outrageous!! look! Look! Look at the money you spent a month!”
The guy unfolded the ledger.
“Eh? Is the balance of $50,000 all there is?”
It was absurd.
The money for Singapore exports continues to be deposited, and I am earning 100,000 dollars a week by supplying catalysts to Galfsa. What is the balance like?
“Look at the money you spent. Let’s say that’s the salary of the employees in the repair cost of the factory. Can an alternative factory dormitory be a hotel? Why build a flush toilet in the bathroom? Yeah, I’ll admit that pooping is important. What is this though? The factory site is so large, why buy the surrounding land? Are you investing in real estate? Yes, let’s assume that the price of land in this village will rise someday. By the way, stainless steel piping? Bentonite? calcium carbonate? zeolite? Ammonium butyral? Ethylene dichloride, mistress. It’s hard to pronounce. Why buy something like this!!! Why do you import things like this with the precious barter rights you received from exporting fabrics!”
Damn, I’m here to ask you for using the barter ticket.
In fact, I’m not even going to follow it. If I can afford it, I want to sell the barter ticket at a premium.
But what can I do?
Plants work only when there are raw and subsidiary materials.
“calm down. Calm. It’s because you can’t spin synthetic fibers just because you have naphtha.”
“naphtha? What is it?”
“Naphtha!”
“Naphtha? Was this a naphtha factory?”
At this time, naphtha was called naphtha.
It can be called naphtha in English pronunciation, but naphtha in German pronunciation can be said to be the origin.
Chemical technology was historically strong in Germany.
“Yes, polyester and nylon raw materials will be extracted from this plant. Then you’ll be spinning a thread from the comet. You are picking fabrics at a factory in Seongsu-dong. By the way, didn’t I tell you this?”
“Bitch tell me! Both you and CEO Hwang Hye-seong kept their mouths shut, saying that Ulsan work was confidential.”
“Hey, our company’s security is great, isn’t it? To think that even the head of the head office, the sole manager of the head office, was not aware of it.”
Fuck!
“Wanna die!”
Sambok must have been embarrassed, so he went head-to-head.
If they had known that they had imported raw materials for localization of yarn, they would not have made such a fuss.
“Stop being annoyed, I’ll show you. let’s go.”
“Ugh. Aren’t you going to let this go?”
“If not at this time, when will you enjoy the luxury of being briefed by the president?”
I put him under my armpit and went to the back of the factory. The front of the plant was still under construction, but the rear plant was able to operate normally.
It was the highest security area of Daesae Chemical.
***
Iron lump.
I opened the security iron door and entered.
Only those with the key can enter.
“Chief Hwang!”
“Boss Wu, have you finished lunch already?”
“I want to go out to eat after work. It’s been a while since this manager came down.”
Today, President Hwang postponed lunch and was working.
If you go 10 minutes before lunchtime ends, you can eat right away without standing in line, so you work until then.
Few people work as passionately as President Hwang.
Of course, it is directly related to the growth of Comet Nylon, so there will be a taste of hard work.
“Ah, Sambok-nim has come down.”
“No, what is this?”
Sambok’s eyes widened.
It was a natural reaction.
Compared to the crappy front of the factory, the back of the factory had dazzling polymerization reactors standing tall.
“It is a polymerization furnace for synthetic fibers. President Woo called me the microphone tower.”
To be honest, I didn’t know how to set up a polymerization furnace so quickly. Since there were numerous large and small polymerization reactor parts in the factory warehouse, it was only necessary to weld according to the process flow chart.
Perhaps the original concept of the factory was a refinery and a polymerization reactor complex plant.
“Mike Tower… Huh? Stand… Could this be a pellet?”
Sambok, who looked around, was surprised once more.
Because rice grain-shaped pellets were pouring down on one side.
Instead of directly spinning yarn in a polymerization furnace, in a polymerization furnace, small pellets of nylon or polyester are first made, melted, and threaded through a machine called a spinning machine.
The important thing is that the lumps of raw materials made in this polymerization furnace are not low-grade flakes, but the highest quality rice grain-shaped pellets.
Sambok, who also worked in the textile industry, was surprised to see the piles of pellets.
“Isn’t it pretty? It is polyester pellets. All you have to do is take it to Seongsu-dong and spin the thread.”
“Could we have localized polyester?”
“President Woo, not us, succeeded in localizing it. President Woo personally designed all the plants here and set the process conditions. He is indeed the best chemical engineering genius in Korea.”
The nobleman, who had been moved to tears just a few days ago, now spoke calmly.
“Chemical Engineering? Chansu, you are from the Department of Business Administration.”
“I have always been interested in chemistry. Didn’t you know?”
I smirked and shrugged.
“Is this something you could be interested in?”
“Isn’t it true that I’m a bit of a genius?”
“no it’s not. I… don’t talk.”
Contrary to expectations, Sambok’s reaction was quite calm.
Chansu, it’s possible if it’s you, what’s this feeling?
It was a way to acknowledge that I am a genius.
“Ah, Mr. Hwang. Yesterday afternoon, Galfsa opened the main naphtha valve. It opens the valve on our side as well.”
“Is that so? Are you finally mass-producing polyester?”
“Nylon should also be pulled out. First of all, what we send to Singapore is nylon fabric.”
“Don’t worry about pulling caprolactam (nylon material). I tried it several times with Unit 2.”
There are several polymerization furnaces in the backyard, the larger Unit 1 is assigned to polyester and the smaller Unit 2 is allocated to nylon.
It was a natural assignment as the demand for polyester would increase over time.
“Chansu, how much yarn does it pour when mass-producing?”
Sambok asked with half expectation and half worry.
“Well, if you look at it annually, it seems like 30,000 tons of polyester and 30,000 tons of nylon will come out? 10,000 tons of plastic to be used as other coatings will come out.”
“it’s crazy? What materials are pulled out by tens of thousands of tons? How are you going to sell that much?”
“Ah, boss. Worried about not being able to sell? Later on, they would make a fuss over why they could only pick this one.”
I called Sambok the manager and made fun of him.
I can assure you that after 2-3 years, Sambok will be begging for an increase in production.
“Is this a joke? 30,000 tons of nylon is also a huge amount, but what if you pull out 30,000 tons of polyester! I have to do my best.”
Sambok’s voice grew louder and louder.
“Don’t worry. It will sell so well that we can’t sell it because we don’t have our fabric. We will sweep the market not only in Southeast Asia, but all over the world.”
“Swept the world?”
“We can pull out all the ingredients we need. How would you feel if you used water-repellent coated nylon as the outer shell and polyester as the inner? Waterproof, windproof, breathable, washable, dry, etc. all the quality will overwhelm other fabrics?”
“… You mean the fabric has a double structure? Is that possible?”
“Of course it is possible.”
“Are you… really a genius…?”
“maybe.”
Sambok was speechless at my answer.
Really, the fabric is the product of a genius idea. In the 1990s, under the name Polytech, it dominated sportswear around the world.
The important thing is that not only sportswear but also US Marine Corps uniforms were made with polytech fabric.
What I like more is that the company that first made the fabric went bankrupt in the 2000s after overextending its business.
In other words, even if I preoccupy Polytechnic technology, the butterfly effect will not be very large.
It is at a level that is sufficiently controllable.
“Chief Hwang, please take care of me here for a while. I will go to Seoul for a while.”
“You want me to take over here?”
“Please bear with it for about a week. I should hand over the pellets I have produced so far to Mr. Hwang, spin polyester, make fabrics by color, and send them to Singapore. Of course, with the double fabric, we also penetrated the military uniform market.”
“A military uniform?”
“The Vietnam War. Either the Korean Army or the US Army.”
“!!!!”
My words took both of them by surprise.
Doesn’t it make sense to think about it?
Aren’t the newspapers making a lot of noise about whether Korean soldiers should participate in the Vietnam War?
At this time, society as a whole was in an atmosphere of trying to earn foreign currency by participating in the Vietnam War.
There was also the logic that if the combat troops were not dispatched, the U.S. forces in Korea would be withdrawn, leaving a hole in national security.
“Vietnam War! Chansu, you are truly a genius!”
“Why do you keep talking about being a genius?”
“This time it’s for real. you are a genius! A genius in business.”
“Stop it and load the truck. Let’s go up to Seoul.”
“Let’s go up!!!”
Sambok, who had come down with a grumpy expression at first, jumped up and said he felt good.
President Hwang Hye-seong also happily loaded polyester and nylon pellets onto the truck.
The pellets in my mind were already turning into dazzling polytech fabrics and boarding export ships.
“Put on your seat belt.”
“Step on it! Chansu!”
“Get your truck license. If you don’t win, I’ll fire the manager.”
“Oh, be scared!”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Ah, yes. president.”
We joked and went up to Seoul.
I remembered that I had skipped lunch on the way, so I bought cold noodles.
The cold noodle season was already approaching.
***
Comet Nylon.
“Old Man Hwang!!”
“Glory!!”
“Oh, where have you been?”
Since we arrived in the evening, I was about to take off the pellets and get some rice, but Hwang was not there.
“Oh, who is this? It’s not the boss.”
“Oh, madam. Where are you, old man? I have something to ask of you.”
“Boss Wu, this is not the time to talk about work. Come on, let’s go to the factory. ‘Cause I’m upset now The inspiration also ran there.”
“Our factory? What happened?”
“Every time it happens. Black people attacked the factory and Miss Kim and the staff were captured. It’s crazy. Come on. hurry!”
“Yes? Are our employees being held?”
What kind of nonsense are you talking about?
I looked at Sambok, but he didn’t know why either.
“Let’s go, Chansu.”
“okay!”
I rushed to the factory without measuring before and after.
