Chapter 956 Fossil Energy Crisis

half an hour later

Zhongzhou War Zone Headquarters Building, War Zone Commander's Office:

Gu Chengyuan sank deeply into the large leather sofa, crossing his legs in relaxation. The rising sunlight outside the window streamed onto his gilded insignia of the rank of general, as if coating this moment of tranquility with a layer of gold foil.

On the solid wood tea table in front of me, the warm and delicate Ru kiln tea cups are rising with hot steam like aromatherapy, which fills the entire office with a light and soothing tea fragrance...

Directly in front of him, Zhou Guihong, now a colonel and director, stood straight in a neat military uniform without a single wrinkle from head to toe.

Facing Gu Chengyuan, he habitually pushed the titanium frame on his nose with his knuckles, gently opened the file in his hand, and reported in a slow and clear voice:

"Report to the commander! The Operations Department's battle damage assessment—"

"So far, the Battle of Yucheng has consumed a total of 2 tons of various combat supplies, including weapons and ammunition. The exact value is 4 tons."

Having said this, Zhou Guihong paused for a moment, and the sound of turning pages of documents tore through the silence.

“The consumption structure is as follows:

"Ammunition carried by troops and supplies produced by Zhanjiang Military Industrial Base: 10044 tons (accounting for 41.5%)."

"Direct allocation from war zone strategic reserve: 14143.65 tons (58.5%)"

The last line of data was read out with emphasis:

"Currently, the total remaining amount of the four existing frontier war reserve depots is: 46211 tons"

4.6 tons left?

As Zhou Guihong finished speaking, Gu Chengyuan began to estimate in his mind...

If nothing unexpected happens, these 4.6 tons of combat supplies should be able to support the consumption of the front line for about half a month... enough to last until the next wave of zombie brain cores are transported back and exchanged for system money...

But this is just a game idea. The real logistics account cannot be calculated in this way, because in reality, the transportation cycle must be taken into account.

With the current transportation capacity, tens of thousands of tons of combat supplies would probably take nearly a week of non-stop transportation day and night.

And as the three columns of the East, West and North continue to advance, the supply lines are gradually being extended. The reason why the supply is so smooth now is that the early preparations were done well and the transportation routes were opened in advance.

After that, we will go deep into the unexplored apocalyptic area. Whether it is clearing obstacles along the transportation line or sweeping out mutant creatures, it will take a lot of time and energy to carry out...

By that time, not only will the workload of the logistics and transportation forces increase, but fuel consumption will also increase sharply.

When it comes to fuel, it is also a big problem that we will face soon...

Thank you for the gift of the end times!

From the outbreak of the apocalypse to the present day, the fuel problem has basically been solved by relying on the legacy from before the apocalypse. The troops use the ready-made gas stations and oil depots wherever they fight, so in many cases, fuel is not counted as logistical supplies.

But as time goes by, it has been almost a year since the end of the world.. The reality that we have to face is that fuel will also expire..

This can be seen from the feedback from the front-line troops in recent days. The oil pumped out from many gas stations has become darker in color and has produced colloid...

If the oil is used forcibly, insufficient power is a minor issue. More importantly, it is easy to cause carbon deposits in the engine, blockage, or even damage the engine...

Therefore, the solution to the fuel problem is imminent, otherwise the future can only rely on system exchange.

If this really happens, the consumption of zombie crystal cores will be huge. You know, let alone armored vehicles and tanks, which are oil-consuming monsters, even ordinary military vehicles have a terrifying displacement...

By then, even if the troops in the Zhongzhou war zone can be afforded, the actual net benefits of the war will be greatly reduced!

At the same time, this behavior of spending precious system money to exchange for basic natural resources is no less loss-making than exchanging gold for stone, and it cannot be described by just the word "bloody loss"!

It's such a loss, it's no different from losing it!

On the battlefield of Yucheng, the three columns of the East, West and North captured three counties and eliminated more than 500 million zombies, consuming a total of nearly 2.5 tons of combat supplies.

According to the assessment of the logistics department, the three counties are expected to harvest about 400 million zombie crystal cores, which is equivalent to 4000 million system money, or 8 tons of combat supplies...

2.5 tons: 8 tons

This is the current rate of return. Although it is floating and inaccurate, it can be seen from this that the current troops rely on fighting to support the war. Because they cannot produce their own logistics, the actual rate of return is not actually high, and is even lower than that of some street vendors before the end of the world.

The upcoming fuel problem will further depress the already low rate of return. It won’t lead to a loss, but it will definitely be compressed to an extremely low level, seriously dragging down the development speed of the entire Zhongzhou war zone!

So regarding the issue of fossil energy, the Zhongzhou Theater has held more than one special meeting of the Theater Standing Committee in the past few days, but the results of each meeting were not ideal.

First of all, the resource endowment of Yezhou and Chongqing, which is rich in gas but poor in oil, is a fatal flaw. There are sufficient natural gas pipelines, but the crude oil production and reserves are pitifully small. Looking through the resource distribution maps of the two provinces and cities, almost all of them are shale gas extraction.

Only the Xingye 9 well in Liangping District of Yucheng is "shale oil + gas", but the annual crude oil output is only about 3 tons. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a drop in the bucket if you want to maintain the combat consumption of the entire Zhongzhou war zone.

You should know that the fuel tank capacity of just one J-16 multi-purpose heavy fighter jet in the Zhongzhou Theater Air Force has reached 10 tons!

The Air Force has a total of 48 fuel-guzzling aircraft like this. As for the H-20 strategic bomber, it takes about 140 tons of aviation fuel to fill up the tank.

Therefore, the annual oil production in Liangping District of Yucheng alone cannot even meet the daily training of the Air Force of the Central Plains Theater, and this is when the Air Force does not continue to expand...

Not to mention the helicopters, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery, missile launchers, transport vehicles, and various types of support vehicles of the theater army...

There are nearly 20 vehicles in the system troops alone, plus the Yezhou infantry brigade, which will soon increase to , large-scale engineering equipment in more than a dozen production and construction divisions, railway troops, internal security troops, government official vehicles in Yezhou and Chongqing, etc.

If we calculate carefully, the total number of combat vehicles and non-combat vehicles in the entire Zhongzhou war zone will soon exceed 3, most of which are gas guzzlers!

Even if the troops remain as they are and do not continue to expand, the fuel gap may reach at least 500 million tons!

At this point, Gu Chengyuan could really deeply understand the beautiful country before the end of the world!

His desire for oil is now no less than that of the other party. In other words, at the level of the Standing Committee of the entire Zhongzhou War Zone, everyone's eyes turn green at the sight of oil!

Oil is called the blood of modern industrial civilization. Without oil, even the most powerful modern army will be defeated!

Therefore, in order to meet the current and future fuel needs of the entire Zhongzhou War Zone, the targets have been set at several War Zone Standing Committee meetings!

Either go north to Qin or Gan provinces, either of which can meet the demand, or go south to Southeast Asian countries, with Myanmar being the best, which can also meet medium- and short-term needs!

What remains now is how Gu Chengyuan will make his decision!