After the kerosene market in the Safi area was opened, the turnover of Xihai Trading Company increased steadily. If nothing unexpected happened, in the 36th year of Xuanping Dynasty, the kerosene sales of Xihai Trading Company could reach 4 million Tang Yuan, and then
Including the import and export trade of other goods, it is expected that Xuanping's business in 36 years will reach more than 5 million.
And the profit is at least one million or more!
It seems that the profit rate is only 20%, which is not very high. The profit rate of many trading companies can reach an astonishing 50% or even higher, and profits of several hundred% are very common.
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For example, in the early years, it was very common for merchants to trade with the indigenous people with glass beads and other small gadgets. At that time, a bag of glass beads could be exchanged for various gemstones of the same weight. Even if it was not good enough, it could be exchanged for a large bag.
Gold and silver.
A few years ago, there was an adventurous team that was very lucky. After exploring the Americas, they brought back a huge ruby. This ruby was four centimeters long, three centimeters wide, and five centimeters high, and the texture was very good.
As a result, it was sold for a sky-high price. It is said that the ruby was finally purchased by the Royal Assets Department and has already flowed into the palace.
In the end, it is rumored that the adventure team only used a negligible amount of lead bullets to get back this priceless ruby from the natives in a fair and just transaction.
This is simply a huge profit!
This kind of legendary story of sudden wealth also stimulated many adventurous people of the Tang Dynasty to go overseas, organize or join various expedition teams, and venture into indigenous-controlled areas in various places, looking for opportunities to make a fortune.
Some large-scale expedition teams and adventure teams even dare to directly attack indigenous cities and even destroy an indigenous tribe or country in order to make a fortune.
Coincidentally, Europeans actually did the same thing in Africa and America.
Otherwise, how do you think the Age of Discovery in the Middle Ages came about? Isn't that how it came about? A group of guys who wanted money but not their lives traveled around the world just to make a fortune.
As for colonization and subsequent expansion, that is all in the future.
Generally speaking, money leads the way.
As for the Tang Dynasty, it was quite different from the European side of the original time and space.
The overseas expansion of the Tang Dynasty was an official action led by the government in order to realize the empire's global strategy and to solve the problem of the living space of the Chinese people.
Relatively speaking, overseas trade with the indigenous people is only incidental.
As for taking risks to get some gold and gems, it is even less worth mentioning.
Under this general environment, the current overseas trade scale of the Datang Empire is actually very small, and its export volume is only about 100 million Tang Yuan. This includes all Datang-controlled areas and territories such as the mainland, overseas mainland, and overseas territories.
Total exports between Aboriginal controlled areas.
This shows that the trade between the Tang Dynasty and the indigenous people was not as big as imagined.
With such a small export market share, even the oil industry cannot support it.
The foundation for the survival of enterprises in the Tang Empire still includes the domestic market in mainland China, overseas mainland and overseas territories.
However, these are for other companies, but for companies like Xihai Trading Company that specialize in import and export trade in the Ottoman and Safi regions, the overseas markets in these two places are the foundation for their survival.
As the business grew bigger and bigger, Xihai Trading Company became more and more formal, and Zuo Chengsheng was also thinking about the future.
At present, the kerosene export trade is undoubtedly the core business of Xihai Trading Company, but Zuo Chengsheng knows very well that the current height of Xihai Trading Company's kerosene export business will be the height of the next three years.
In the next three years, it is impossible for Xihai Trading Company's kerosene market to expand.
It’s not that the market isn’t big enough to sell, or that the competitors are too powerful, but that kerosene production capacity is limited and export quotas are almost restricted.
The two main shareholders of Xihai Trading Company and the largest partners in the kerosene export trade of Xihai Trading Company, Royal Petroleum Company and Imperial Oil Company, have made it very clear that they are under great pressure. In the next three years, whether it is now
Some new kerosene production capacity will be given priority to supply the domestic market.
Otherwise, several core senior managers of these two companies will probably be finished...
Because for these oil companies, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises and the Royal Assets Division don't care whether you make money or not. But if you ignore the overall situation in order to make money, then you can basically declare the end of your career!
Didn’t you see that Northwest Petroleum Company has openly announced in the newspaper that it will increase production by more than five times in five years and will invest all of it in the domestic market. It will not export even a drop of kerosene to satisfy the domestic market.
Didn’t you see that Nanyang Petroleum Company has announced that it will conduct large-scale oil exploration in Borneo and other areas, and also said that once oil is found, its production capacity will be given priority to supply the domestic market.
Everyone is just showing off. Royal Oil Company and Imperial Oil Company are actually diverting kerosene production capacity for export. This has already made many people unhappy. If they increase their export share, it will be even worse.
Therefore, these two oil companies have made it very clear that in the next three years or even five years, the new production capacity will be supplied to the domestic market, and the export quota will be maintained within the total of 20,000 tons at most.
The share of this supply of goods is limited, so what else can be done? Zuo Chengsheng can only think of raising the price, reducing the level of sales channels, and then making more profits.
At the same time, as an ambitious man, he was not content with being a kerosene export trader. He also wanted to develop upstream.
The more he did this kerosene business, the more he understood the huge profits of the oil industry. He was just a second-rate dealer selling refined kerosene, and that was how much profit he made, and the profits of those oil companies were even greater.
He had inquired about it. In fact, the cost of oil extraction in Baku is very low. The cost of extracting a barrel of oil is only a few cents at most. How much does a barrel of crude oil cost?
The oil supply price among several oil companies is about eight yuan per barrel.
Things that cost just a few cents can be sold for eight Tang Yuan, which is a profit of more than ten times!
Then we made a lot of money in the refining and sales stages. Finally, when it came to the retail terminal, even though kerosene was cheaper than whale oil, it still cost about 20 cents a liter. This was still the wholesale price to retailers...
Calculated in the meantime, from extraction to retail, the profit margins of those oil companies can reach astonishing dozens of times!
Dozens of times the profit, anyone would drool just looking at it!