Homo Sapiens

Homo Sapiens Company’s efforts to poach shipbuilders for the New Luzon Shipyard didn’t stay secret for long. The head of Samsung Heavy Industries at the Mingzhou Shipyard soon found out.

Although Samsung Heavy Industries was hostile toward the New Luzon Shipyard, there was nothing they could do about the situation.

After all, it was Samsung Heavy Industries’ own decision to shut down the Mingzhou Shipyard and lay off its workers.

They couldn’t very well object to the workers finding their own way out, could they?

If Samsung Heavy Industries were to do that, they would have to keep the Mingzhou Shipyard running, which was clearly out of the question.

Therefore, Samsung Heavy Industries could only watch coldly from the sidelines. There was absolutely nothing else they could do.

Meanwhile.

Malaysia had restructured its domestic shipping operations this year, forming a new shipping group. In reality, this was a move to consolidate and reorganize the internal shipping resources that Homo Sapiens Company had secretly come to control.

The newly formed Malaysia Shipping Group currently controlled 8 LNG ships (670,000 deadweight tons), 7 oil tankers (830,000 deadweight tons), 32 container ships (2,320,000 deadweight tons), 145 bulk carriers (1,220,000 deadweight tons), and 86 other vessels (410,000 deadweight tons).

As one of the world’s top ten LNG ship-owning nations, Malaysia acted uncharacteristically this year. Not only did it have no new orders for LNG ships, but it also sold off three of its existing ones.

The reason for this was simple.

The fundamental reason was that the Malaysia Shipping Group had given its shipbuilding orders to the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company. In particular, an order for eight new methane transport ships was entirely snapped up by them.

「July 23, 2021.」

This year’s sixth typhoon, In-fa, traveled north toward East Japan, avoiding Southeast Asia.

A transport ship carrying 80,000 tons of methane, which had departed from the waters east of Malaysia’s Malay Peninsula, arrived at Yangcheng Port.

This methane transporter was the first of its kind delivered by the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company to the Malaysia Shipping Group, and this was its maiden voyage.

Zhao Xingmin, the manager from Hu Petroleum Company’s Lingnan Branch in charge of the natural gas unloading port, was currently in business negotiations with Zhuling, the business manager from the Malaysia Shipping Group.

Holding the shipping schedule and rate sheet, he noted that the Malaysia Shipping Group’s recent freight rates were reasonable.

The current rate for a standard LNG carrier (100,000-ton class) was 65,000 US Dollars per day. For a trip from Malaysia to Yangcheng Port, which averaged about five days, the total transport cost for one standard LNG carrier came to 325,000 US Dollars.

In contrast, the Malaysia Shipping Group’s methane transporter (80,000-ton class) was quoted at 50,000 US Dollars per day, which was a bit cheaper.

However, Zhao Xingmin was well aware of their situation.

"Manager Zhu, can you bring the price down a bit? How about 45,000 a day?"

He made this offer because he knew that methane transporters were cheaper to operate than LNG carriers; after all, they didn’t require cryogenic temperatures.

But Zhuling just smiled and shook her head. "You must be joking, Manager Zhao. Fifty thousand a day is already a friendly price for you. No other company could get this rate. Besides, you’re getting benefits out of this deal as well."

They negotiated for over half an hour, but Zhuling wouldn’t budge.

Fortunately, the Malaysia Shipping Group showed genuine interest in a long-term contract. They offered a rate of 42,000 US Dollars per day, but it was for a three-year term and required a minimum of 120 operational days per year.

Zhao Xingmin had no objection. He was approaching Malaysia Shipping Corporation on instructions from his headquarters, which wanted to lock in some of their shipping capacity to hedge against potential spikes in freight rates.

This was actually a common risk-aversion strategy for large energy companies. During unexpected events, short-term charter rates could skyrocket severalfold. Only long-term contracts could ensure stable transport costs.

Partnering with Malaysia Shipping Corporation wasn’t some whim on the part of Hua Petroleum, Huasheng Petrochemical, and Huahai Oil. It was a necessary choice made after careful consideration.

It wasn’t just Malaysia Shipping Corporation; New Luzon Sea Transport had also signed numerous long-term contracts with the three giants.

After signing the long-term transport contracts for three methane transporters, Zhao Xingmin joined Zhuling and her colleagues to observe the methane transporter "Reef" in the port.

Unlike a conventional LNG carrier, the deck of the methane transporter lacked the massive, hemispherical metal domes. Instead, it was a completely flat container deck.

Likewise, the gas pipelines for unloading methane were different from those on an LNG carrier. They required no cryogenic maintenance equipment, nor any regasification facilities.

The port’s LNG storage tanks all use cryogenic liquefaction. To deliver the stored LNG to end-users, a safe heating and regasification unit must be placed in the line. This prevents the LNG from vaporizing too quickly and rupturing the pipelines.

However, the methane transporter offloads the cargo as a gas. A dedicated cryogenic liquefaction unit is needed to liquefy the natural gas before it can be pumped into the port’s storage tanks.

This was somewhat inconvenient for an LNG port, but fortunately, Hu Petroleum Company had already anticipated this and installed a cryogenic liquefaction unit at the port.

Luckily, the shipping rates from Malaysia Shipping Corporation and New Luzon Sea Transport were low enough that the costs offset each other, resulting in no overall increase in expenses.

And who could complain about not having to increase costs?

This was one of the reasons Huaguo’s three energy giants were so interested in Malaysia Shipping Corporation and New Luzon Sea Transport.

If the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company’s order book wasn’t already full until 2024, and if Huaguo didn’t have its own domestic LNG shipbuilders, the three energy giants would have ordered a dozen or so methane transporters to supplement their own fleets.

Unfortunately, such an action was obviously "politically incorrect."

Furthermore, the Homo Sapiens Company’s large-scale gas storage tank technology had also captured the attention of the major energy giants. After all, storing liquefied natural gas is extremely dangerous, and the maintenance costs are a significant problem.

Likewise, shipping companies worldwide were extremely interested in the methane transporters from the New Luzon Shipbuilding Company. Unfortunately, its current production capacity was completely booked by Malaysia Shipping Corporation and New Luzon’s own shipping arm, leaving no available slots for other companies.

However, many shipping companies were already starting to reconsider purchasing more LNG carriers.

After all, this type of methane transporter—dubbed the "New Luzon-class" in the shipping world—was simply too good to pass up for shipping companies, thanks to its dual-purpose nature.

This was especially true for regions rich in oil and gas, which often have underdeveloped manufacturing sectors. They export oil and gas while simultaneously needing to import large quantities of food, daily necessities, and electronics.

This allowed the dual-purpose transporters to maintain a full schedule, eliminating empty legs.

Why do shipping companies have such a love-hate relationship with oil and gas tankers?

It’s because they always have to make one leg of the journey empty.

The per-unit freight rates for many container ships and dry bulk carriers are often less than half those of oil and gas tankers. The reason is simple: conventional cargo ships can carry full loads on both legs of their journey.

An LNG carrier, however, can transport nothing but natural gas, meaning half of its operational time is spent sailing empty.

This is precisely why the "New Luzon-class" transporter has become the new star of the shipping world.

Zhao Xingmin gazed at the container fittings on the deck of the "Reef" and turned to ask with a smile,

"Manager Zhu, has your company picked up any container orders here in Yangcheng?"

"We did. We have a shipment of containers bound for Siam. From there, the company might pick up another load of containers for Kuala Lumpur before finally heading to the offshore oil fields on the Malay Peninsula to take on methane. A full round trip should take about half a month."

"It seems your company’s shipping services are in high demand!" Zhao Xingmin remarked, feeling a bit envious.

Zhuling smiled and shook her head. "We work hard for our money, that’s all."

The demand for maritime shipping in regions like East Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia, and South Asia is actually far greater than in North America.

If it weren’t for years of deindustrialization that led to a continuous decline in its manufacturing sector, North America, with its own resources and population, would hardly need to import anything.

But Asia is a different story.

Many parts of Asia suffer from various deficiencies, to one degree or another.

East Asia, for example, has a powerful manufacturing base, but it also faces enormous energy and resource deficits;

West Asia is rich in energy, but its manufacturing sector is virtually nonexistent;

South Asia has a massive population and decent agricultural resources, but its manufacturing is mediocre, and it also has huge resource and energy gaps;

Of the four, Southeast Asia is actually the most well-rounded. It has the population, agricultural resources, energy, and minerals, as well as a share of low-end manufacturing.

If it could shore up its manufacturing weaknesses, Southeast Asia could basically become a self-sustaining economic bloc.

In the future global landscape, any power that wishes to challenge North America must first control Southeast Asia.

Without the support of the massive Southeast Asian bloc, no single power could stand against North America on its own.