083 : Monthly wage given
It was a semi-submersible oil rig.
For some reason, the drilling rig was on the verge of being dismantled.
The derrick, which looks like a huge power transmission tower, was fixed to the deck of a freighter, and the bulky parts were neatly laid out.
The main body with six columns (original legs) was suspended from the cargo ship by floating in the sea like a caisson.
I hurriedly boarded the cargo ship to check it up close.
Derek, as well as the semi-submersible drilling rig that had been towed, were quite intact.
The main engine was not confirmed, but the hoist, mud pump, and anchor winch were well equipped.
It must have been a first-generation drilling ship in the 1960s, but the appearance was unusual. In the 21st century, drillships that are much more advanced than this are used, but for me now, I was really sensitive.
“The rotating device is top-drive!”
I don’t know who made this drilling rig, but with a little upgrade, it seemed to be roughly similar to the 4th generation drilling rig in the 1990s.
“Heh heh, I thought the boss would recognize this guy.”
Captain Smith, who followed, spoke to Derek while stroking him.
“How the hell did you get these things?”
I suppressed my excitement and asked Captain Smith.
“This is a state-of-the-art drilling rig developed by Reading & Beast. The problem is that they spent so much money making it that the company is on the brink of bankruptcy.”
“What kind of specs…”
“This is a bit rusty, but the inside is the latest. Even if you look at the main engine alone, there are six of them with 5,000 horsepower.”
“Six 5,000 horsepower?”
crazy It could be said that it is a 4th generation drilling rig based on its specifications alone.
“What should I do if my equipment is good? After years of drilling in the wrong places, I forgot all the money and sold it to a San Diego shipyard.”
“You acquired it from the San Diego Shipyard.”
“Yeah, no one cares about this nice guy, so me and the engineers got lucky and signed a $20 million contract. So far, we have only paid the $2 million down payment.”
“Twenty million dollars?”
oh my god! $20 million for a drilling rig like this?
It was ridiculously cheap compared to the specs.
First of all, if I have this drilling rig, discovering oil is a piece of cake.
In my previous life, ‘if I had dug that road first…’ Have you ever regretted it once or twice?
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about the balance. If you dismantle it and sell it separately for the main engine, generator, hoist, pump, and the rest of the scrap metal, it’s $25 million in no time. You sit down and make five million dollars. The down payment paid first can be returned slowly after the sale.”
It was as if Smith was handing me $5 million as a gift for the job.
“Haha, why disband? You have to assemble it.”
“Yes? Are you assembling it?”
“We need to assemble and explore for oil.”
“Ah, Mr. Wu. Are you kidding? Oil exploration is a speculative business with a success rate of 10% and 70% of the cost for each failure. How many companies went bankrupt after starting oil exploration?”
That’s right.
Even in the 21st century, where exploration technology has developed, oil exploration is a speculative business. It’s related to national security, so it just doesn’t stop exploration despite the deficit.
Even if you go abroad for exploration, you have to pay concession rights, and even if you succeed in oil exploration, you have to pay corporate tax that is close to 50% of the profits.
Even if Union Oil discovers an oil field with a capacity of 100,000 barrels a day, it has to build an oil refinery in Korea to make a profit.
In other words, in the current situation without an oil shock, oil exploration is close to madness.
But, I’m different.
They know where to start exploring for oil, and they know when an oil shock will come.
“no. Our country needs oil exploration. Even a small amount of crude oil can give us the status of an oil producing country, and then we can participate in futures trading of crude oil from the Middle East.”
“Trading crude oil futures? All you have to do is trade futures. Why do you want to do oil exploration?”
“Anyone can trade Texas crude oil futures, but you have to be an oil producer to trade Middle East crude oil futures.”
West Texas oil is traded on the New York Futures Exchange, but Middle East crude oil has only begun to be traded on the Abu Dhabi Futures Exchange in the 21st century.
In other words, in the 1960s, Middle Eastern oil futures trading was a league of its own, involving only Middle Eastern royal families, oil producing countries, and major oil companies.
This is because Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States, has declared that spot trading is a priority for Middle Eastern crude oil, and futures trading is done between oil-producing countries. This trend did not change until the early 2000s.
If it becomes an oil producing country nominally, it can participate in crude oil futures trading from the Middle East.
“Come to think of it, Korea won’t import Texas oil.”
“Yes. They are more expensive than those from the Middle East and cost more to transport, so there is no reason to import them.”
In the 1960s, South Korea ordered crude oil from the Middle East through American oil companies and negotiated oil prices with them.
It was like relying on a private company for national energy. The reason why Union Oil was willing to permit the oil refinery despite the presence of Galf was because the government wanted to increase the stability of crude oil supply and demand.
“I didn’t know about this situation. You are saying that Korea must become an oil producing country in order to receive a stable supply of crude oil from the Middle East.”
“Right. We are not America.”
Captain Smith nodded.
Of course, I did not recommend oil exploration.
Because the probability of failure is too high.
“Is there anyone you can recommend as an oil exploration expert?”
“There should be. Hopeless… No, it’s a friend named Hoffman, who was also the head of the expedition who led this drilling rig.”
“Uh, is that so? Where are you now? I want to go and recruit him right away.”
“You don’t need to come. I came with you.”
“Yes, you came with me?”
Hey, what windfall is this?
It must have been one of Smith’s colleagues who trained our staff.
All of them were recruited as advisors to the Portland governor, but did they come all the way to Korea without staying there?
“He’s been blown by the sea breeze all his life, what are you going to do in the office? He begged me to be the captain of a cargo ship and brought him here. It would be better if you entrusted the drilling rig. No luck, I’m not a bad guy.”
There is no windfall like this.
Bringing in Captain Smith, talent is coming along. I felt so good that I went crazy.
“Where are you now?”
“hey! Hopeless! Hopres!”
Captain Smith waved and called someone.
“Hey, you rotten bastard. I told you not to call me like that. My name is Robert Hoffman. Hoffman!”
“Hehehe, you damn bastard. say hello CS Woo here. He is the CEO of DS.”
A grandfather of a similar age ran out of nowhere.
It must have been a lot of heartache, but he was a thin man with a very thin face, the exact opposite of Captain Smith.
“My name is Chansu Wu. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you. This is Robert Hoffman. If you write as captain, I will do my best. I will teach young people diligently. Smith, I won’t be worse than this guy, trust me.”
Hoffman introduced himself by poking Captain Smith in the stomach.
“You said you were the captain of this drilling rig?”
“Um… I’m just sorry. If we had dug in the Santa Barbara area, we would have had at least a small success, but we only drilled in strange places… Ugh.”
Hoffman felt sorry for Derek, who was about to be dismantled, as if he was sorry for the last oil exploration.
It was the regret of any oil prospector.
“Will the captain of the drilling ship fill the castle? You must be much more interested under the sea than above it.”
“That’s true, but if I’ve been doing this for over 10 years and haven’t smelled the right crude oil, I’m out of luck with exploration.”
“I may not have the luck of oil exploration, but I might have the luck of gas field exploration.”
I suppressed my pounding heart and talked about the gas field. In order to make Korea an oil-producing country in one fell swoop, gas field development is a priority.
An oil field takes at least five years from exploration to first production, and the production period is also very long, about 20 years.
The initial investment is high, so it will take 3 years to recover the investment.
However, for gas fields, one year is enough for all of that.
It is also meaningful in terms of securing exploration results in the shortest period of time.
“A gas field?”
“Korea is a peninsula country with a developed continental shelf. I read a thesis that it is highly likely that gas fields developed in this terrain.”
“That… is that so?”
Or how about
All it takes is for this nobleman to penetrate the sea off Ulsan.
There is a gas field with commercial significance called the Donghae Gas Field.
“Since I was planning to build a harbor off the coast of Ulsan, I did a geological survey and discovered many structures such as whales with thick cover rocks. It seems highly likely that there is a gas layer.”
“Whale back rescue?”
Hoffmann’s eyes widened at the jargon used by oil prospectors.
“Isn’t it better to be down? There is a drilling rig like this, and if you want to try it once and don’t like it, then you can dismantle the drilling rig and sell it.”
“Boss, do you believe in Hopeless luck?”
“Hey man, where are you interfering? They say there is a whale back rescue right now. If I just insert a straw, oil and gas come out in an instant. This time for real.”
“indeed?”
“Go away, I’ll talk to the boss and me.”
Hoffman got excited and pushed Smith away.
It was like a thin person pushing a fat person, so I couldn’t even push it properly.
In the meantime, I took out my notebook and drew a picture.
“There is a place called Ulsan not far from here. Judging by the size of the continental shelf, it is my calculation that the whale back structure would have developed the most if I went about 70 km southeast of Ulsan.”
I drew a floor plan and cross section and put it out.
I also ate a lot of rice from the drilling ship, so I drew a cross-section of it, and Hoffman shuddered as if he had seen a treasure map.
“Is Ulsan really like this?”
“From the looks of it, Captain Hoffman, I don’t think there’s any chance of gas coming out, right?”
The Donghae gas field produced 1,000 tons of natural gas and 1,200 barrels of ultra-light crude oil per day.
By today’s standards, you can earn roughly $12,000 a day.
If you extract 4.5 million dollars a year, and an average of 12 years, it is a gas field worth 54 million dollars.
Objectively, it is a small-scale gas field that barely pays for itself. Of course, after the oil shock, the status will change a little.
The most important thing is that it is like a salary to me in terms of the symbolic meaning of being an oil-producing country and the steady supply of money.
In other words, even if you borrow a lot of money, it means that there is no problem at all in paying the interest. It’s perfect for collateral.
“If it’s 70 km from the coast, it could be transported by subsea pipes.”
“Is it just that you can transport it? There is a petrochemical complex in Ulsan. It can be directly transformed into various petrochemical products.”
“Heh heh! There is a petrochemical complex there?”
Gas fields can be used as heating gas after a simple dehydration process, and the ultra-light crude oil that comes with it has a naphtha extraction rate of 80%, which is four times higher than normal crude oil, so it is especially valuable to me.
“Yes, if a gas field is discovered near Ulsan, its efficiency is extremely high.”
“Somehow, the staff of Daesae were so impressed when they saw the drilling rig… Everyone must have been interested in it.”
Hoffman was moved to the point of tears.
My employees would have been impressed when they saw anything new, but they must have had their own thoughts.
“you’re right. The enthusiasm of our staff is amazing. I will pay the balance of $18 million to the San Diego Shipyard. Let’s put aside the thought of dismantling the drilling rig for a while and try it properly. You will definitely succeed.”
“Are you sure you will succeed?”
“sure. Captain Hoffman. If you stop here, hope will end in hope, but if you succeed now, your failures will only be trial and error.”
“Ugh … Uh … No one has told me that. My wife is leaving… damn…”
“Korea is a land of passion and hope. If you’re lucky enough to be missing something, we’ll make up for it. The gas will surely burst out.”
“aaa!”
Hoffman, who must have been moved by my words, screamed and climbed up the derrick (a steel spire structure).
how much did it rise Standing on the middle brace, holding a megaphone, shouted loudly.
“Look. Young Koreans. Your boss here gave me a chance. Please apply for only 50 people here. Then I will definitely develop the gas field and make you rich. Come!!!!”
Where did Mr. Hoffman get such strength from?
Because it’s English, not many people will understand it.
“Me! Me!”
“Pick me!”
huh? did you understand
Some engineers showed interest and stepped out.
“What, are you picking people?”
“Can I just raise my hand? Me!!!!”
We artisans were not the ones to miss an opportunity.
I noticed that people pick people up quickly.
“Damn it, I have to go up. They don’t pull it out.”
“me too!”
After a few started climbing the derrick, you and I started climbing. In no time, 50 people were filled.
“Oh my gosh… so many people applying. I will definitely promise you I will definitely make you rich. Trust me.”
“hurray! hurray!”
“Passed!”
As Mr. Hoffman clenched his fists, those on the middle brace hurrahed that they had passed.
“But what are we doing?”
With that level of action, it was the case that the expedition members were properly selected. Eventually, I gave the final order.
“All the passers-by there. Starting today, we will assemble the drilling rig here under the command of Director Hoffman.”
“Wowaaa!”
“Everyone knows, right? Our trend is that the bonus is certain! Night work 1.5 times! If oil exploration is successful, a success bonus is paid! Work begins!”
“There is a success bonus! Waaa!!
“Everyone shout! We will be rich!”
“We will be rich!”
“safety! safety! safety!”
“safety! safety! safety!”
They cheered as if they had already pulled out the oil.
I headed for the Busan branch that way.
It seemed that a shipyard or a steel mill could start.
Sooner or later, I will be able to get a good quality water supply.
***
Busan branch.
I called Sambok first.
follow. follow.
＜Hello. This is Lee Sam-bok, the director of Daese Unemployment.＞
“Sambok!”
＜Oh, Chansu. What’s going on? What’s wrong with your voice?＞
The boy’s voice was already trembling.
“Hey, I’m going to spend some money. I will send 18 million dollars to the San Diego shipyard in the United States.”
＜What are you talking about? Did you forget you threw money in Ulsan? You say you’re making a private port? we don’t have money
“I know. After I send the money, the balance will be less than five million dollars. It will cost additional expenses, so we could go bankrupt if we don’t.”
＜Are you crazy, what are you talking about?＞
“Pick out a lot of gold skins and export them quickly. so it won’t go bad I hang up.”
＜Hey, hey! Yay!!!!!!＞
Took.
First of all, the bankruptcy of the company has been prevented, and whether it is a steel mill or a shipyard, let’s start with a real review.
