With the unremitting efforts of Juan Mantar, the Drake Usan River copper and gold mine with an investment of 120 million US dollars and the Gataian mountain gold mine with an investment of 20 million US dollars were simultaneously included in the Ark Vanuatu is the first batch of pilot projects open to investment by foreign enterprises.
Of course, this is inseparable from the recognition of local forces such as Margot Voss.
Including a series of projects such as the new plantation promotion plan, the new Drake freight station and the Usan River hydropower station construction project, Cao Mo and the Democratic Promotion Front also first reached an agreement with the Drake local government.
After that, Drake's once turbulent ethnic antagonism also dissipated and was calmed down.
In early April, Cao Mo rushed back to Pemei from Drake. On behalf of the Yibogu Gold Mining Group, he signed a cooperation agreement with the Akwa National Petroleum and Mining Group, and officially obtained the Wusang River copper and gold mine and the Gataian Mountain gold. The mine has a thirty-year mining right.
At the same time, Tubman Jr., who not only temporarily served as the chairman and president of Stru Gold Mining Company, rushed to Peimei Port to meet with Cao Mo. Shen Ji also accompanied representatives of Xinhai Iron and Steel United Group to inspect the Mangba Iron Mine, passing by Peimei Port. Meigang, meet up with Cao Mo.
After Stari fled from Kanem to China, in order to paralyze Baha Jidam, Cao Mo and Abacha alienated themselves from contact with Little Tubman. For this reason, they became friends with Little Tubman, Bra Mu was still very dissatisfied with Cao Mo and Abacha. After all, Cao Mo had not seen little Tubman for almost two years.
Little Tubman, who was once a lively and cheerful man, became much more taciturn and haggard during this meeting. This shows that the changes in the past two years have really hit him hard.
Although Cassia was not emotionally invested at all, she gave birth to two sons for little Tubman. The truth was too cruel, and Starlie did not directly expose it nakedly. Instead, she hurried to hold a new meeting at the Stru Gold Mining Company. On the occasion of the meeting of the board of directors, he personally rushed to London to meet Cassia, gave her a pension, and asked her to sever ties with the Tubman family from now on.
Little Tubman still didn't know what the truth was. He thought that Cassia had a new love after arriving in London. He was also hit hard this time and took his two sons away from London where he had lived for more than half a year. However, he couldn't integrate into London. Set foot on the soil of West Africa.
It was also Cao Mo who was in a hurry and couldn't find anyone, so he temporarily asked Tubman, who was living in London at the time, to come forward to negotiate the equity acquisition agreement with the investors of Stru Gold Mining Company, and temporarily serve as Stru Gold Mining Company. Chairman and president of the company.
Little Tubman had no experience in managing a mining company, and he came here hoping to hand over his responsibilities as soon as possible so that he could return to Draculamore and start a new life.
Shen Ji accompanied the representatives of the New Steel Federation. They were rushing to the headquarters of the Democratic Promotion Front in the afternoon to visit Juan Mantar and others. They would also meet with the senior officials of the Akwa National Petroleum and Mining Group. Cao Mo was meeting with Xiao Tubman waited for the dinner to begin at the beachfront estate.
Tubman Jr. is eager to relinquish his temporary position at Stru Gold Mining Company, but Cao Mo has not yet found someone to replace him:
"It will take some time to organize the existing assets and business of Stru Gold Mining Company. Now there are two main directions. One is to acquire the remaining equity from other small and medium-sized investors. If this progress is difficult, We will consider a thorough liquidation of the existing assets and businesses of Stru Gold Mining Company, and merge the relevant businesses into Ibogu Gold Mining Group as much as possible - we will need your help for a while during this period."
The other small and medium-sized investors of Stru Gold Mining Company have nothing to do with Cao Mo. At the same time, these investors have already received generous dividend returns from Stru Gold Mining Company. In the past nearly ten years, they have been hit.
There is no interest in focusing on developing gold mining operations in West Africa.
Therefore, it is a suitable choice for both parties to completely acquire the shares in their hands without hindering each other.
Of course, Cao Mo and the others have already obtained control of the Stru Gold Mining Company, so it is naturally impossible to pay such a high premium to acquire the remaining equity. They will only make normal quotations for the current assets.
If it is difficult to acquire this part of the equity, then they will integrate the related businesses of Stru Gold Mining Company into Ibogu Gold Mining Group, turning it completely into a shell company.
Cao Mo naturally hopes that little Tubman can continue to take on this aspect of work.
Another issue is the consolidation of the Tubman family's assets.
The Tubman family's oil palm plantation in Draculamore is still a high-quality asset that Dongsheng Group is willing to acquire. The acquisition funds can also be obtained by applying for a loan from the National Export-Import Bank, which will not occupy Dongsheng.
Cash flow is currently scarce.
After Shen Ji said hello to Ding Zhaoqiang about this matter, he could proceed with the delivery directly after little Tubman came back and signed the agreement.
The full integration of the Tubman family into the Tianyue system was something that Cao Mo and Stari had discussed a long time ago, and little Tubman did not object. However, the Tubman family's small funds would not be available in Tianyue's existing Konai.
As for how to allocate the shares among Luo Food, Cornero Cement, Ibogu Gold Mine and Tianyue Industrial among four different companies, and whether the shareholdings should be focused on, we still need to ask Tubman in person for his opinion.
Starlie's personal funds are mainly used to further develop the security company. This time, more than two hundred new recruits are recruited from the descendants of Drake's colonists for long-term and arduous training, which requires a large amount of funds to support; and Xiaota
Buman has always been the head of the Tubman family, and he should make the decisions regarding the Tubman family's investments.
"I am also familiar with plantation management. Cornero Foods is interested in developing cocoa plantations in Oguta, Benin and Drake in Akwa. The funds available to the Tubman family are limited.
It’s limited, let’s put it mainly in Cornero Foods!” When Tubman came back this time, he also considered what he could do after finishing his work at Stru Gold Mining Company.
After much deliberation, he must do something after returning to West Africa, so that he can become more comfortable in this area.
"Okay!" As long as the Tubman family's funds are integrated into the Tianyue system, Cao Mo has no objection to Tubman Jr. wanting to focus on holding shares in Cornero Foods.
At present, Cornero Foods is still relatively small. The Tubman family may take 20% of the equity by injecting US$12 million in capital. As the executive director, Tubman Jr. can also legitimately take over Cornero Foods.
Under the framework of Luo Food, he presided over the development of plantation business.
Oguta and the east bank of the Drake Usan River are newly reclaimed plantations. It will take about five or six years before the fruit can be harvested. This also requires considerable patience to do this, but it is also suitable for small towers.
Buman slowly regained his strength.
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While chatting, Shen Ji called and said that their meeting with the top management of Akwa National Petroleum and Mining Group had ended and they were driving to the seaside manor.
Cao Mo, Little Tubman, Xiao Jun, and Zhou Han walked to the main building of the manor. After waiting for a while, they saw a dozen cars filing in and stopping in the square in front of the main building.
The representative of the New Steel Federation inspection delegation is Senior Vice President Zhang Chaoyang, who is in his forties and in the prime of life. He is also the one who within the management of New Steel Federation advocates looking for new mineral sources in West Africa to get rid of dependence on Australian and Brazilian iron ore at this time.
Representative figures.
For the Xinhai Iron and Steel Group, whose annual crude steel production capacity has reached 8 million tons, the Catero Steel Plant with an annual output of only 400,000 tons is only a very small project. At the same time, it is located in West Africa, a region with unstable political situation, and the steel products it produces are
It mainly supplies the West African market and is not very attractive to them.
But when it comes to the Mangba Iron Mine, whose reserves are far from being developed and currently has the third-largest proven iron ore reserves in West Africa, they don't mind laying down a chess piece first to make plans for the future.
Therefore, driven by Shen Ji, the New Steel Federation's inspection team headed by Zhang Chaoyang focused on the Mangba Iron Mine in Akwa.
West Africa has always been one of the most important iron ore belts in the world. Akwa, Senegal, Liberia and other countries are rich in hematite. As early as the 1960s, West Africa was the most important steel industry in Europe.
raw material base.
After the 1960s, the anti-colonial wave surged in West Africa. After independence, various countries fell into civil war and turmoil, which directly led to the closure of a large number of inland iron mines.
After the 1990s, the political situation in West Africa became relatively stable. However, the rise of iron ore mines in Australia and Brazil, coupled with complete railway and port infrastructure, has meant that West Africa's iron ore resources have not had a chance to turn around in the past ten years.
Unlike copper concentrate or gold-bearing ore, the relatively cheap iron ore trade is still very sensitive to transportation costs.
The major ports in West Africa only have 30,000 to 50,000-ton ore terminals, and there is a lack of complete railway support from the mining area to the port. How can it compete with the iron ore mines in Australia and Brazil that can go to sea with the help of giant 300,000-ton ore ships?
The situation has changed due to the rapid development of China's steel industry in recent years.
China's super-large steel groups, represented by New Steel Group, have set annual production capacity development targets at tens of millions of tons or even exceeded this target. With the support of the state, they already have the corresponding financial strength to expand overseas.
If you want to invest one to two billion US dollars in iron ore mines in West Africa, you are more likely to fail in the end. However, the scale of investment rises to billions or even billions of US dollars, and you have the ability to develop ultra-large iron mines at the same time and invest in the construction of 300,000 tons.
Class-level deep-water berths and the construction of railways between ports and mining areas have the ability to reduce transportation costs to a reasonable range.
At a time when the iron ore resources in Australia and Brazil are monopolized by a few mining giants, the high-quality iron ore resources in West Africa have become an important choice for Chinese steel companies to seek strategic breakthroughs from the upstream.
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Xie Sipeng, who saw the investment value of Mangba Iron Mine a year ago, also rushed from Mangba to Pemei to greet Zhang Chaoyang and his party.
At this time, they came out of Akwa National Petroleum and Mining Group together with Shen Ji, Garon Targaryen, Brahm and others to accompany Zhang Chaoyang, senior officials of the China Civil Engineering Construction Office in West Africa and officials of the embassy in Afghanistan towards the main building.
.
Everyone went to the coconut grove on the beach to chat for a while. When Juan Mantar and a deputy minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Akwa arrived, the dinner officially began.
Juan Mantar, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Akwa and officials from the Chinese Embassy in Afghanistan also attended today's dinner as a courtesy.
Even though Juan Mantal, as Chairman of the Front for the Promotion of Democracy and Deputy Minister of Economy of Akwa, will personally accompany Zhang Chaoyang and his delegation to visit places such as Drake and Mamba, he still represents Akwa at this time. The Ministry of Economy and the Democratic Promotion Front of Vanuatu could not talk too much in front of Zhang Chaoyang and others, nor would they show their close friendship with Cao Moduo. They left after the dinner.
After the Chinese and Arab officials left the table, Cao Mo and the others started chatting for a while.
Zhang Chaoyang is a bit older than Shen Ji, but they are university alumni and went to the same university in England. Therefore, after Shen Ji returned to China to work at Dongsheng, the two became quite close personally.
However, before being tricked by Shen Ji into coming to Akwa, Zhang Chaoyang had doubts in his heart.
Of course, Zhang Chaoyang's trip to West Africa had always been in Zhang Chaoyang's planned schedule. It was simply moved forward by Shen Ji's instigation. What he had doubts about was what Shen Ji said about Cao Mo.
our investments in West Africa.
Before 2000, domestic state-owned enterprises mainly entered West Africa to undertake infrastructure construction projects. Later, mechanical and electrical, engineering equipment, daily chemicals, hardware, home textiles and other industrial products entered the West African market in a large scale.
New Steel Union has not informally established a sales company in West Africa. It has only set up an office in Kanem to cooperate with agent traders in West African countries to import products into the West African market. The current scale of New Steel Union is still very small, but New Steel Union The Steel Federation also noted that as the political situation in West African countries becomes increasingly stable, benefiting from the rise in crude oil and other commodity prices, international purchasing power and domestic infrastructure levels are increasing, it will become an emerging steel consumption market in the world.
However, when it comes to industrial investment, the information collected by the New Steel Federation's office in West Africa also identifies a very limited number of companies such as Dongsheng and Taihua as the main ones, while the rest are small and medium-sized investments mainly in light industry.
Chinese businessmen in Kanem, Akwa, Benin and other places mainly focus on trade.
Shen Ji told him that there was a young Chinese businessman whose investments in cement production, gold mining and electricity in West Africa were larger than those of Dongsheng and Taihua combined. How could Zhang Chaoyang not have doubts?
It was only after Song Yuqing, on behalf of Cornero Cement, formally signed the agreement with the Lu family to acquire Beiku Cement Plant and Xintaihua Grinding Station that Zhang Chaoyang agreed to accompany Shen Ji on a trip to West Africa in advance.
They had stayed in Draculamo for a day, met with officials from the China Civil Engineering Construction Office in West Africa, and then drove to Akwa. Only then did he truly believe that what Shen Ji said was not adulterated.
For the construction of the main facilities of the Wusang River copper-gold mine, including the mineral processing plant, Cao Mo chose to cooperate with China Civil Engineering Construction and the Xinhai Institute of Mineral Geology this time.
This time Akwa's economic policies are liberalized, and the infrastructure market is also a target for China Civil Engineering Construction and other infrastructure construction groups; China Civil Engineering Construction also officially established a branch in Peimei as early as the beginning of the year.
The scale of cooperation between Cao Mo and China Civil Engineering Construction is not very large, but it continues to this day, and the two parties will continue to cooperate on projects such as the Conero Lake Industrial Park. The relationship between the two parties is already quite close, not to mention Liang Siqian. A group of backbones were recruited by Cao Mo to form Cornero Engineering and Construction Company.
This is not just a matter of personal emotional trust. The result of Zhang Chaoyang's inspection is to report to the management and board of directors of New Steel Union. At this level, the information provided by the officials of the China Civil Engineering Construction Office in West Africa is obviously higher than that of Shen The economy is more convincing.
No matter how unimaginable it is, it is an undoubted fact that Cao Mo, as a young Chinese businessman, has made outstanding achievements in the fields of gold mining, cement production, food and power energy construction in West Africa.
Especially this time, Cao Mo is going to invest more than one billion yuan in Akwa. Of course, it is not a big deal in China, but in West Africa, except for oil exploration and Kanem and other countries that are guaranteed by national credit, For large-scale infrastructure projects, how many decent investment projects are there?
However, Zhang Chaoyang was still full of doubts about Cao Mo's large investment.
It's not that he doesn't believe there is a real copper-gold mine in Drake, but the political situation in Akwa is currently full of uncertainty, and he thinks Cao Mo's investment is a big adventure with uncertain success or failure.
Once major changes occur in Akwa's political situation, the fate of Juan Mantar and other figures will be difficult to predict. Don't expect them to give any strong guarantees at all.
After the dinner, Zhang Chaoyang also expressed his doubts straightforwardly.
Cao Mo had stayed in Akwa for more than two months in total due to the smashing of the military coup plot in Uvbonia and the discovery of the Usan River copper and gold mine, and it was not just his contact with people from Juan Mantar's group.
Even though he didn't want to show up in public, let alone sit down and have business talks with officials at all levels in Akwa in a serious manner, he tried his best to take advantage of various opportunities to maintain contact with people from all aspects and levels in Akwa.
Before Ufo Bonya's coup attempt was crushed, Akwa could be said to be full of crises and uncertainties. However, after Ufo Bonya and other military officer groups were ruthlessly suppressed, this risk has been greatly reduced. freed.
At present, all strata in Akwa basically support political change.
After defeating Ufo Bonya's coup attempt, the Sewi authorities are accelerating the process of political change, both in terms of actual actions and their own cognition.
Even Sevi himself is more convinced that he will win the first election after the political change, which is necessary for him personally and for his family.
Of course, Cao Mo's observation of Akwa's politics, including his strong intuitive feelings, was difficult to fully convince Zhang Chaoyang and others. At this time, he just smiled and said: "We have been in Kanem, Benin in the past few years. Investment has some basics. If you want to develop further, even if there are some risks, you can only bite the bullet and continue to take root..."
Xie Sipeng experienced many changes in West Africa, but ultimately chose to stay in West Africa and wait for new opportunities. Cao Mo's rhetoric is naturally convincing.
Cao Mo didn't expect to be able to convince Zhang Chaoyang during their first meeting.
Before Shen Ji came over, they had discussed it many times on the phone, and they knew very well that even if the political situation in Akwa was stable, it would be impossible for the New Steel Alliance to rashly launch an investment project worth billions of dollars in Akwa.
They now just hope that the management of New Steel Union can see the potential of Mangba Iron Mine, and they also hope that New Steel Union can pay attention to the steel market in West Africa.
As long as the New Steel Union can see these two points, I believe it should not be a difficult choice to first invest tens of millions of dollars in the Catero Steel Plant to lay the foundation for its West African iron ore strategy.