Material Empire

While Sun Zhenjiang and others were busy hoarding steel products, Qin Hai was receiving guests from Japan's Spring Mountain Magnetic Materials Co., Ltd. at the office of the Daqin Group in Beijing. There were two people who came to visit Qin Hai, one was the technical director of Spring Mountain Corporation Sadao Hirano, and the other is Eiji Nagatomo, the Minister of Purchasing.

"President Qin, I'm very glad that we meet again." Sadao Hirano said with a smile while bowing deeply when he saw Qin Hai. In his heart, he has mixed feelings about Qin Hai. He is grateful to Qin Hai for transferring the technology of dysprosium-terbium ferroalloy to Chunshan Society, but also hates Qin Hai for monopolizing the supply of rare earths, forcing Chunshan Society to purchase at high prices. Dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide. Without this incident, Chunshan Club would not be as passive as it is now.

Qin Hai knew what Sadao Hirano was thinking, and he responded with a smile: "Mr. Hirano, you are welcome to visit China again. I hope that the cooperation between our two companies will be more in-depth and extensive."

"This is also the wish of our President Miyagawa." Sadao Hirano said, and then he introduced his long friend Yongsi who was traveling with him to Qin Hai. The two shook hands and greeted each other, needless to say.

After exchanging greetings, the host and guest sat down respectively. Qin Hai asked the two Japanese knowingly, "Mr. Don't be polite, we are partners, and everything is easy to talk about."

Sadao Hirano looked at Changyou Yongji, who coughed lightly and said, "Chairman Qin, we came to China this time. We really want to trouble your company with something. I wonder if Chairman Qin can give us some advice. to offer comfort."

"Oh? What is it, Mr. Changyou, just say it." Qin Hai said straightforwardly.

"The thing we want to bother your company is about dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide..." Changyou Yongsi paused deliberately, waiting for Qin Hai to speak.

Qin Hai was too lazy to speak for the other party. He pretended to be confused and said, "Dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide, these two products are rare earth oxides. Is there any problem?"

"Uh... What we mean is that we hope that your company can increase the market supply of these two products." Changyou Yongsi couldn't hold back anymore, the card was in the opponent's hand, and he was not in a hurry. He had a way nor.

"I don't quite understand, Xiao Su, do you know what Mr. Changyou is talking about?" Qin Hai continued to pretend to be stupid, and kicked the ball to Su Yabo, the director of the office who was accompanying him.

Su Yabo nodded and said: "I probably know one thing, Mr. Qin, it is like this. Chunshan Club hopes to purchase 200 tons of dysprosium oxide and 50 tons of terbium oxide, and once sent a salesman to our office to contact. But , we don’t have so many sources of goods, so we can’t meet their needs. I think Mr. Changyou is also here for this matter.”

"Yes, yes, we are here for this purpose." Changyou Yongsi nodded repeatedly.

"200 tons of dysprosium oxide and 50 tons of terbium oxide... this seems a little difficult." Qin Hai frowned and said, "The output of rare earth is only so small, and the amount you need is too much... yes Why do you need so much dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide?"

"..."

Sadao Hirano was so lucky that he didn't spit out a mouthful of blood. He had seen someone pretending to be deaf and dumb, but he had never seen someone pretending to be so unscrupulous. The patent of dysprosium-terbium-iron alloy is in Qin Hai's hands, and it is also authorized by Qin Hai to Chunshan Company for use. Can Qin Hai not know the purpose of Chunshan Company in purchasing dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide?

It is really useless to get a technical patent at a high price, but cannot produce a product because the supply of raw materials is not available. If it is said that Qin Hai did not deliberately reduce the shipments of dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide in order to curb the production of Chunshan Company, even a fool would not believe it.

Knowing this in his heart, Sadao Hirano had to put on a polite face, unable to turn his face against Qin Hai, he said impatiently: "Chairman Qin, the situation is like this. Our company has exchanged technical patents with your company After that, the dysprosium-terbium-iron alloy was further developed, and several products have been researched and ready to be put into production. The proportion of dysprosium and terbium in the dysprosium-terbium-iron alloy is very high, so our company needs to purchase a large amount of dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide to maintain A certain amount of production. Your company and our company are in a cooperative relationship, and I hope your company will support our company in this regard."

"Oh, I remembered." Qin Hai patted his head and said as if he had suddenly realized: "By the way, dysprosium-terbium-iron alloy, this patent seems to be developed by our company first, and we exchanged NdFeB with your company Patents. At present, our main focus is on the production of NdFeB, and Dysprosium Terbium Ferroalloy has not paid special attention to this aspect, so I have somewhat forgotten about this matter.”

"Your company has a lot of business. It's normal that Chairman Qin can't remember it." Changyou Yongsi said, knowing that the other party is playing tricks on him, but he still pretends not to see it. This is what it feels like to be controlled by others.

"Director Su said just now that you want to purchase 200 tons of dysprosium oxide and 50 tons of terbium oxide, is that true?" Qin Hai asked.

"Exactly." Changyou Yongsi said.

"This is completely fine." Qin Hai said happily.

"Really?" Changyou Yongsi's eyes lit up, he never thought that Qin Hai would agree to their request so easily, and he was still preparing to bargain with Qin Hai.

"No problem." Qin Hai confirmed again. He turned to Su Yabo and said, "Xiao Su, I will leave this matter to you. You sign a contract with Mr. Changyou, promising to provide Chunshan Company with For 200 tons of dysprosium oxide and 50 tons of terbium oxide, the price should be determined by the group headquarters.”

"What? Five years!" Changyou Yongsi was originally full of joy, but when he heard Qin Hai's last words, he almost jumped up in shock. It took only five years to supply 200 tons of dysprosium oxide and 50 tons of terbium oxide. Chunshan Company would have starved to death long ago. What is the difference between this and no supply?

"What, is there a problem?" Qin Hai entered the state of pretending to be stupid again, looking at Changyou Yongsi and asked.

"Yes." Nagatomo Eiji said, "Our company has a very large demand for dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide. This figure is the annual demand. If it takes us five years to purchase these raw materials, it will not be able to meet them at all. Large-scale production requirements, which means that our company will fall into serious operating difficulties."

"200 tons of dysprosium oxide per year, isn't it realistic?" Qin Hai said, "The output of dysprosium oxide has never been high. In the past, the annual output... According to my impression, it is more than 100 tons per year. This is more than 100 tons. Tons of dysprosium oxide, we cannot provide all of them to your company, after all, we still have some domestic demand, and there are also some other companies in the world that need dysprosium oxide, we also have to consider it.”

"I know this." Nagatomo Eiji said, "According to what we know, the Chinese government has handed over the mining and management rights of rare earths to your company, and your company should be able to control the production of various rare earth products. I would like to ask for instructions." Chairman Qin doubled or even tripled the production of dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide, so as to be able to meet the needs of international customers including Spring Mountain."

"This is difficult." Qin Hai shook his head, "The Daqin Group is only entrusted by the government to temporarily be responsible for the management of rare earths. The development and utilization of rare earths is ultimately determined by the state, and we cannot make decisions without authorization. What's more , To double the production of dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide requires a lot of investment, we need to build more than three rare earth refineries, and we need to invest at least 200 million yuan."

"...I'm afraid it won't take so much investment?" Sadao Hirano couldn't help interjecting, "It's just 200 tons of dysprosium oxide, why do we need three refineries? Also, the equipment in the rare earth refinery is very simple, how can we use it? Up to 200 million yuan of funds?"

"Mr. Hirano doesn't know something." Qin Hai patiently explained, "Dysprosium and terbium are associated with other rare earth elements. To increase the production of dysprosium oxide and terbium oxide, it is necessary to increase the production of other rare earth oxides at the same time. As a result, the total output has increased. As for the rare earth refinery, the old-fashioned production process is indeed very simple, and the investment is not much. However, our State Rare Earth Office has promulgated new production regulations, requiring the improvement of the utilization rate of rare earth resources, and also To reduce pollution, according to this new production standard, the investment will be very large, and 200 million yuan is still a relatively conservative estimate.”

"What kind of new standard is it? How could it increase the cost to such an extent? Chairman Qin, can I have a look at the requirements of this new standard?" Sadao Hirano said. He has always been dealing with rare earths, and he knows a little bit about rare earth extraction technology. Even with the most advanced extraction technology in Japan, it is still not enough to invest tens of millions of yuan in a factory. You must know that this factory only produces hundreds of tons of dysprosium oxide.

Qin Hai smiled slightly, and said: "This new specification is still confidential at present, so it is inconvenient for me to disclose it to Mr. Hirano, and I ask Mr. Hirano to forgive me. The difficulty in the production of dysprosium oxide is just like this. Please understand."

Hearing what Qin Hai said, Sadao Hirano and Changyou Yongsi understood in their hearts. It's just a production standard, so there's no such thing as secrecy, it's clearly an excuse made up by Qin Hai himself. But Qin Hai insisted that such a norm existed, and they really had no way to refute it. In fact, in international economic cooperation, things like this are too common. To put it bluntly, they are just looking for an excuse to ask for extravagant prices. It is not that Spring Mountain Company has never done such things.

"Then, Chairman Qin, can you give me some advice on how we can obtain an annual supply of 200 tons of dysprosium oxide and 50 tons of terbium oxide?" The easiest way is to know Qin Hai's reserve price.