Chapter 600 - Steelmaking! (2/2)

“This is only the first batch. I remember in our agreement that the total was 50 million tons.” Jiang Chen smiled at the skepticism in Luke’s eyes without providing any explanation.

Something unpleasant happened between the two of them a while ago. BHP sent out commercial spies against Future Group in an attempt to steal their deep water mining technology, but Jiang Chen’s Ghost Agents took out all the rats they hired.

But standing here now, the two simultaneously agreed not to bring that up.

“Even building an aircraft carrier wouldn’t need this much iron.”

“An aircraft carrier? Who said I was going to be building that?” Jiang Chen chuckled.

“Then what do you want to do?” Luke furrowed his brows.

“It’s a secret,” Jiang Chen replied mysteriously.

Jiang Chen’s mysterious expression made Luke dying to know the answer, but the oriental man clearly didn’t plan on revealing anything, so he had to settle. Based on the agreement at the Rothschild family dinner, Future Mining would take a step back on deepwater mining technology. BHP would supply 50 million tons of ores to Future Group at 80% the market price.

30 million tons of iron at 20% off was near the cost of ore production for BHP. Although it pained Luke that he wouldn’t make any money, he soon relinquished the idea since the iron had been in storage for too long.

A total of 30 million tons of ores were transported to the port by freight and containers before being transported to the steel plant in eastern New Guinea. The boilers at the steel plant ran 24 hours a day nonstop with the plant workers working on a rotating s.h.i.+ft. Under the supervision of the senior engineers of Future Group, they molded the steel and aluminum into the appropriate shape.

The steel plants were built as soon as Jiang Chen came back from Frankberg. Since Xin’s Vice President’s diplomatic visit to New Guinea the last time, Future Mining built a total of ten large steel plants in the eastern province, employing a total of 20,000 workers for Future Mining.

It was almost the total population of Xin.

The steel plants visibly boosted the port’s economy.

Future Group offered high overtime pay and the New Guineans who started working in the steel plant first became the richest of all. With money, restaurants, supermarkets, bars, malls and even theaters appeared, which was something the people at the port hadn’t imagined before.

The low red brick buildings were demolished and replaced by concrete buildings, apartments, and even mansions contracted by Celestial Trade. The land was sold by the local government to Celestial Trade. The officials who tasted the booming economy almost wanted to sell all the undeveloped land to Celestial Trade.

What was with the cautious att.i.tude of the central government toward Celestial Trade? Were they uncomfortable with the increasing population?

Who cared?

Before the New Guinea cities became modernized, they were practically tribes. To this day, the local government still possessed high autonomy. With exponential increases in tax earning, the mayor was already smiling too much to close his mouth and he naturally wouldn’t make trouble for Future Group.

A good corporation could raise a city. That sentence was perfectly demonstrated by Future Group.

Containers of industrial goods were hauled on trucks to the port and loaded onto freights to Ange Island. It was like a blood vessel connecting New Guinea and Xin, which formed a scene familiar to the locals. Some of the containers were transported to the a.s.sembling facility on Ange Island to be manufactured into housework robots and MIX1 batteries.

But most of the containers were hauled into a half-closed warehouse…