Chapter 445 United Petrochemical

"Congratulations, David, my friend, I believe this is just the beginning, isn't it?"

"Thank you, Barron, I hope so too, and I will do my best to do it."

This is Neverland, a suburb of London. Barron came here with Cameron to celebrate his election as leader of the Conservative Party.

Yes, just at the beginning of December, 64-year-old Michael Howard resigned as leader of the Conservative Party. Speaking of which, for a politician of the same level as the leader of the Conservative Party, 64 years old is not too old. After all, in Nearly twenty years later, Mei Xi Zong, who was still in office before Barron was reborn, was two years older than Howard... At that time, he was already over eighty years old!

The main reason was that in this general election, Howard led the Conservative Party to lose to the Labor Party. Therefore, frustrated, Howard did not wait for another five years to fight again, but prepared to leave these five years to the next party leader. , to prepare for the 2010 election.

Cameron is 39 years old this year. In this election of the Conservative Party leader, he was not the most promising candidate at first. However, after receiving the support of the previous party leader Howard, Cameron was finally elected with a high vote and became a "dark horse" ".

However, this is understandable, because the current Prime Minister became the leader of the Labor Party in 1997 and led the "New Labor Party" to win the general election. When he first assumed the Prime Minister's office, he was only 44 years old.

His youth at that time attracted the attention of the whole world, and his youth, vitality and enterprising spirit also made New Labor highly praised.

Then the Conservative Party, now the opposition party, will also be willing to use the election of 39-year-old Cameron to show that it is still energetic and determined to reform.

When Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative Party and delivered his inaugural speech, he stated that he would reform the Conservative Party and hoped to lead the Conservative Party to compete with the Labor Party led by Blair in the next general election.

It is worth mentioning that after Cameron took office as the leader of the Conservative Party, Johnson, who served as Education Secretary, and Theresa, who served as Transport Secretary, among the "shadow cabinets" nominated by Cameron, will later become prime ministers.

At the same time, in his conversation with Barron, Cameron also proposed to speed up the conservative "new-old replacement" process and start focusing on cultivating young people with potential.

Hearing this, Barron raised his eyebrows. It seemed that another female prime minister was about to enter the Conservative Party's training list. After all, at this time, there was already a tendency towards political correctness in British elections.

Young people + ethnic minorities + women, well, no matter how you look at them, they are all talents worthy of focusing on training.

…

Just before Christmas, United Energy Group CEO Epeli Singleton returned to London.

After completing the acquisition of the natural gas business of National Grid Company of England, he handed over the affairs of England to his deputy - mainly to integrate the newly acquired natural gas pipeline network with the original Northern Gas Company's pipeline network, and then he went to He moved to California and was personally responsible for the integration after the acquisition of Unocal.

According to the terms of the acquisition of Unocal at the time, United Energy Group needed to retain most of Unocal's employees. Later, United Energy Group sold Unocal's oil and gas resources in the United States to Chevron, and they also took over some of the employees, accounting for the then A quarter of Unocal’s employees.

In addition to leaving about two-thirds of the remaining Unocal employees in North America to continue supporting its business, United Energy Group has one-third of its employees who need to be dispatched to the overseas market in the United States.

This includes a refinery that will be built after a Unocal refinery in California is relocated to Colo.

At this time, this refinery no longer only belongs to the United Energy Group. They have cooperated with the West African Group and have established a project to invest US$1.5 billion to build a refinery near the refinery that can process more than 20 tons per day. A large refinery with 10,000 barrels of crude oil.

After that, the original refinery will also belong to the refining company called Colo United Petrochemical, and the original Unocal refining plant equipment will continue to be dismantled from the United States and shipped here to increase its scale.

This is mainly to take advantage of Kolo’s local labor costs and location advantages.

On the one hand, it can train industrial workers for Colo and increase the income of local people. The labor cost, plus the cost of training, is also due to the expenditure of the United States.

In addition, the crude oil produced by the Colo offshore oil field can be refined nearby - United Energy Group has given up Unocal's oil and gas resources in the United States.

And in terms of sales of refined oil products, competition in North America is already fierce enough, and they do not need to participate in it.

In the future, United Energy Group's crude oil and refined oil sales will mainly be targeted at African markets as well as Asian and European markets.

Just like this Kolo United Petrochemical project, United Energy Group holds 60% of its shares and West Africa Holdings holds 40% of its shares. They will cooperate with China's Sinopec, and the other party will provide corresponding equipment and new plant construction Construction, this part of the cost, they will deliver in future products.

At a time when China's energy gap is getting larger and larger, such cooperation is beneficial to both parties.

Colo United Petrochemical's new project is expected to start construction early next year and be completed before 2008, just in time for the peak of oil prices.

In addition, according to what Epeli Singleton told Barron's, Colo Unipec also intends to continue to cooperate with Sinopec and invest in a large-scale refining project in China to supply the Asian market nearby.

According to an analysis report issued by a team led by Standard Chartered Bank's head of global project finance, Will Rathfong, as oil prices rise, most oil-producing countries around the world have plans to expand their mining scale, but the current global oil refining Insufficient capacity has a bottleneck effect on oil prices.

In energy-hungry Asia, refineries are operating at 95% of their operating capacity; in North America and Europe, this rate has also reached 90%.

In this report, it's stated directly: "This level of tightness has lifted oil prices."

Because many communities oppose the construction of refinery facilities nearby, most new refineries are outside the United States and Europe...

Just like the Colo Petrochemical project, it is difficult to consider landing in Europe. In addition to labor costs, various environmental protection reviews and protests from relevant organizations are enough to cause a headache.

About 60% of the currently known new refining facilities are located in Asia and the Middle East, mainly in China, India, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kuwait and Japan.

The subsequent expansion of China's local refining scale will be unprecedented, but even so, it is still somewhat insufficient for its own needs.

"I will go to Colo next. When the new project there is started, the recruitment and training of personnel will begin. However, until the new refinery is completed and operational, all personnel can only take turns working in the relocated plant. Get hands-on training.”

Epeli Singleton told Barron:

"There are still nearly two years until the completion of the planned new factory. Some people have proposed that before that, these workers can be sent overseas to export labor services, which can not only earn revenue, but also train workers..."

"This is a good idea, I will promote this matter."

Currently, in oil-producing countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, more than 80% of local workers are foreign workers.

Mainly from countries such as India, Pakistan and Southeast Asia. In this case, why can't we accept some workers from Kolo?

Barron was prepared to casually mention this matter to the powerful people he knew in the Middle East when he had the opportunity. Anyway, it was only a short-term labor export, and in terms of salary, they were more competitive.

Well, not a big problem.