I want to be emperor

Chapter 986 Ten Thousand Ton Oil Tanker
Tweit State, this overseas administrative territory located on the coast of the Persian Gulf, was very small when it was first established. There was only a small piece of Tweit. Moreover, Tweit at that time was still a place leased by the Chu Empire from the Ottomans. Rent must be paid and there are years.

What's more important is that there is really nothing else in Tweet except sand.

Although it is a coastal area and can be considered a plain area, it does not belong to the rich coastal plain food-producing areas. Only a small area can be cultivated.

At that time, the Chu people chose to build a colony here purely to trade with the Ottomans in the Basra area.

Therefore, the early Chu people did not pay much attention to the construction of the Tweit area...well, in fact, they do not pay much attention to it later, including now.

For a long time, the Chu people only built a small port and supply depot here. They did not even have regular troops stationed here. They only sent a hundred soldiers from the Indian servant army to station here.

Almost all supplies here need to be purchased from the nearby Port of Basra under the control of the Ottomans, or simply purchased from Persia and other places.

Later, the Chu Empire and the Ottoman Empire conducted a series of territorial transactions and successively acquired the Basra area and even the entire peninsula.

As a result, the Chu Empire officially established the State of Kuwait and dispatched a governor, turning this area into the Governor-General of Kuwait State.

However, the Governor's Palace was not established in Kuwait, the earliest colony, but in the newly acquired Basra Port.

After all, Basra is relatively mature in this area, has rich resources, and has rivers passing through it. It is a very good coastal port.

Previously, the Ottomans also regarded this place as an important port covering the Persian Gulf region and the homeport of their Indian Ocean fleet.

The Ottomans used this port and built many warships to compete for the Persian Gulf region. However, they failed to gain an upper hand in the competition with the Persians and the subsequent Portuguese.

Until the Chu people arrived in the Persian Gulf and took strong control of the sea in the Persian Gulf, the Ottomans, like the Persians, had to give up naval construction and instead engage in large-scale trade with the Chu people.

Because if they don't give up naval construction, the Chu people will not hesitate to attack the port and destroy their fleet to help them give up the navy... If they don't trade with the Chu people, the Chu people will directly send troops to land, Help them trade with the empire by raiding port cities and more.

Therefore, after the Chu people entered the Persian Gulf, the Ottomans had to start trading with the Chu people, and signed a series of treaties with the Chu people. Among them was a treaty to concession a piece of land in Basra to build a trading station, and at the same time allowed The warships of the Chu people were anchored in Basra Port for supplies and rest.

So from that time on, the Chu people's business focus in the Persian Gulf had actually shifted from Kuwait to the Port of Basra, and they successively built ports, including docks, warehouses, barracks, forts, trading stations, etc.

A small Persian Gulf fleet and hundreds of army soldiers have been stationed here for a long time.

After the Kuwait State was officially established in the Persian Gulf region of the Great Chu Empire and the governor was dispatched, the Basra area naturally became the location of the Governor's Palace of Kuwait State.

After more than a year of rectification, the Chu people now have full control of the Port of Basra and are constructing the city.

This place also became the strategic support point for the Chu Empire to manage the entire Persian Gulf.

Therefore, the capital of Twit State, which is also where the Governor-General's Palace is located, is not in Kuwait, but in Basra... The reason why it is still called Kuwait State is simply because the place where the Chu people first came to settle down is called Kuwait, and the name has continued.

But 45 years after entering Chengshun, Kuwait, which had not been valued or even ignored by Chu people in the past, has welcomed a large number of Chu people.

After a large number of Chu people came to Kuwait, they started large-scale construction. They first expanded the original pier so that the pier, which could only berth small ships, could directly berth large ships of thousands of tons.

Immediately afterwards, a several-thousand-ton freighter with its own hoisting equipment docked at the dock, and used its own hoisting equipment to transport a large amount of heavy machinery and equipment to the shore. Many of these engineering equipment are high-end equipment that is rare in overseas territories. , such as some steam engine bulldozers, excavators, road rollers, cranes, and many port equipment, especially those lifting equipment.

In addition, there are a large number of railway tracks and several small steam engine locomotives and freight cars.

After the equipment came ashore, work quickly started under the control of the engineering staff. They continued construction on the pier to build a larger pier and install steam lifting equipment.

At the same time, some construction teams built warehouses on the docks, and began to build roads and even small railways.

In a short period of time, the small port of Twit had thousands of people working and a large amount of machinery and equipment.

The overall construction capabilities shocked the natives!

In just half a month, a dock capable of berthing large ships of [-] tons has appeared in small Kuwait, with supporting hoisting equipment and simple warehouses.

At the same time, a small railway of several hundred meters was built from the dock to the warehouse.

Then a large amount of construction materials were hoisted ashore from the cargo ship and then transported to various construction sites.

The most important construction sites are undoubtedly the oil pipelines leading to the oil fields and the oil storage warehouse facilities in the port area... At the end of last year, Royal Petroleum Company had already found a very large oil field in Kuwait and built its first oil field. An oil well.

The oil output from oil wells is very large, but because there are no corresponding supporting facilities, the large amount of oil produced is actually temporarily parked in simply constructed oil storage pits.

Therefore, for the Royal Petroleum Company, the top priority is to transport the oil produced by the oil wells, store it, and then transport it back to the country by ship. It cannot always be stored in open pits like this.

Due to time constraints, Royal Petroleum Company directly cooperated with Anwar Construction Company, the largest construction company in the country, directly under the Ministry of Industry, and asked the company to urgently dispatch construction personnel and equipment to Kuwait to build corresponding oil pipelines, warehouses, and terminals.

In addition, in order to transport oil back to the country from overseas, Royal Petroleum Company also issued an emergency tender for a number of oil transport ships from several large domestic shipyards.

However, special oil transport ships will not be used in a short time. After all, this thing has never been done before. The shipyard also needs to design, demonstrate, and test before construction can start... Oil is a relatively dangerous material, but We can't just ignore it and just put a big iron can on the ship to hold the oil and transport it.

Prior to this, the Royal Petroleum Company still adopted a more traditional barrel transportation method for its oil... No need to bother, just use the original oak barrels that shipped whale oil.

The current main lighting oil in the Dachu Empire is whale oil... As for candles and other oil products, they are also available, but there are actually very few.

In ancient times and even in modern times, before whale fishing became an industrial process, candles or other animal and vegetable oils used for lighting had always been relatively expensive. Ordinary families could not expect to have freedom of lighting...

Candles are a luxury item in lighting products. Even in the Dachu Empire, ordinary people cannot often use candles for lighting.

It was not until the Da Chu Empire's ocean-going whale fishing technology developed, and industrialized streamlined fishing and subsequent processing operations were formed, that whale oil appeared on the market on a large scale as a lighting product. This allowed the Da Chu Empire to Some ordinary households can use oil lamps.

But whale oil is also expensive... Especially since the Chu Empire has hundreds of millions of people, the demand for whale oil is huge. This has also led to the people of Chu to hunt whales crazily. After fishing in the near sea, they go to the ocean... to find it in the Pacific Ocean. If not, go to the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean.

The contemporary Chu people are very crazy about catching whales, and the number of caught whales is also very large. Some of the caught whales are used in industry, but more are used to refine whale oil for lighting.

Therefore, in the past few decades, the Dachu Empire has formed a complete whale oil industry chain, and the supporting whale oil barrels also have a complete industry chain. There are many professional manufacturers in the country that specialize in the production of whale oil barrels.

Therefore, after the outbreak of the oil industry in the Dachu Empire, in order to solve the transportation problem, they directly used the transportation method of the whale oil industry chain. This also made the oil industry in the Dachu Empire not calculate the amount of oil as usual. In the sense of weight, use volume instead... buckets to be more precise.This barrel is actually a whale oil barrel, and the specifications of the wooden barrels used in both are the same.

Royal Petroleum Company now transports oil in barrels and then transports it on freighters.

With the completion of the dock construction, a huge cargo ship also appeared on the Kuwait dock, which also carried a large number of empty barrels.

The empty barrels were brought ashore, filled with oil, sealed, and loaded back onto the ship.

About half a month later, the cargo ship Anlong began to emit thick smoke and set sail with the assistance of port tugboats, heading towards Guangzhou in China.

This trip to the Anlong will bring more than 3000 tons of oil to the country.

It may not seem like a large number, but you have to know that when the Anlong cargo ship returned, another larger cargo ship docked and started loading oil.

But just like this, relying on traditional barrels and bulk cargo ship transportation, coupled with the lack of terminals and low efficiency, the oil produced in Kuwait still cannot be shipped out in time, which gives the Royal Petroleum Company a headache.

The oil production in Kuwait is very large, and it is very easy to extract... You can even find a piece of desert, and then dig out the sand and you will see the oil... So the Royal Petroleum Company has not actually done any research or exploration. No matter how much effort it took, there was already an endless supply of oil.

On the contrary, oil transportation that took a lot of effort and cost a huge amount of money in a short period of time was very troublesome.

This has also led to the Royal Petroleum Company's urgent need for large-tonnage oil tankers.

Similarly, industrial oil companies are facing the same situation. They also built an oil field in the South China Sea, and then built a very large oil field in the Gulf of Mexico in North America.

How to transport so much overseas oil production back to China for refining and selling is a huge problem.

Like the Royal Petroleum Company, they can currently only use ordinary freighters and barrels for transportation, but the freight is expensive, and the transportation volume is also small, inconvenient, and risky.

Therefore, they also urgently need a tanker specialized in transporting oil.

When the two oil companies had common needs and were willing to spend money, they simply joined forces to conduct a tender for oil tankers.

The requirements for the tender are very simple, that is, to reduce transportation costs as much as possible, ensure transportation safety, and use bulk transportation instead of barrels. Corresponding equipment must be available for loading and unloading crude oil.

The entire project is not calculated by ship, but directly by load capacity. The two oil companies will jointly purchase oil tankers with a load capacity of 12 tons.

According to these bidding requirements, major shipyards can design their own oil tankers and bid for them, and the winner will win this high-value order.

However, some of the unique patented designs of the winning ship must also be unconditionally licensed to the two major oil companies, and the two major oil companies are allowed to authorize other shipyards to build oil tankers based on the patents.

To put it simply, this time the bidding is not only for the tanker itself, but also for the related technology of the tanker.

The shipyards participating in the tender are all among the top domestic shipyards, such as Songjiang Naval Shipyard, Songjiang Second Shipyard, Lishi Shipyard, Guangzhou Shipyard, etc.

They had also received the corresponding bidding requirements before this, and started the corresponding design and other preparations several months in advance.

Now to participate in the bidding, that is to compare the designs of various companies and finally decide the winner.

The design plans of the major shipyards were compared one by one, and a winner soon emerged.

But what is surprising is that the winner is not the top five major shipyards, but a Huangpu River shipyard that ranks sixth in the country and is slightly inferior in scale and strength.

The reason why they won is also very simple. The overall transportation cost of the proposed motor and sailboat transportation plan is not the lowest, but it is the most convenient and is in line with the subsequent development of the two major oil companies.

Their design plan is rather special, that is, they do not install any oil pipes on the ship, but directly use the entire ship as an oil tank... multiple separate oil tanks are built directly in the hull, and then connected with pipes, using steam engine-powered pumps. Extraction of oil, loading and unloading of oil.

This will make the loading and unloading of oil very simple and can be integrated with a series of oil storage and transportation facilities located on the docks that the two major oil companies are designing and building.

Secondly, this ship still uses pure steam engine power... Although it requires coal burning costs, taking into account the sailing costs and sailor costs saved after canceling the sailing, the overall transportation cost will not be higher than that of a motor-driven sailing ship.

The speed is relatively slow, with a cruising speed of only about eight knots... You get what you pay for when it comes to speed. If you want a higher speed, you need more power units, which means taking up more space on the ship. At the same time, it also requires more expensive shipbuilding costs, and subsequent operating costs will also be higher.

These days, except for passenger ships, the speed of ordinary cargo ships is generally very slow. Seven or eight knots is the norm, and the speed of more than ten knots is rare...

At the same time, the larger the tonnage of the ship, the lower the transportation cost per ton. At the same time, the ocean navigation of large-tonnage ships is safer. At the same time, because it can carry more coal, its endurance is also better, and it can directly carry out operations far away from the coastline. route, shorten the total distance of the route, reduce sailing time and reduce transportation costs.

Therefore, the tonnage of oil tankers is relatively large, and the load capacity can reach more than 1000 tons.

This series of excellent designs made the two major shipping companies very satisfied. They gave Huangpujiang Shipyard a high technology transfer fee on the spot, and at the same time placed an order for twelve [-]-ton oil tankers of this class at a very high price. .

And this is just the beginning. This time the ship bidding is only the first batch. Only half a month after this batch of orders was placed, Royal Petroleum Company once again separately invited bids for twenty oil tankers based on the technology patents it obtained. However, This time's bidding, in fact, the price for ordinary shipbuilding orders is very suppressed. It is not the same as last time, it also includes R&D bidding, and the price is very high.

Subsequently, industrial oil companies also tendered for sixteen oil tankers in one go.

The oil tankers that will be tendered later are not all big ones with a carrying capacity of [-] tons. Most of them are actually ordinary oil tankers with a carrying capacity of several thousand tons.

This is not only expensive to build [-]-ton oil tankers, but also because there are not many large-tonnage shipyards in the Chu Empire... There are not enough large shipyards to build these [-]-ton oil tankers, and the two major oil companies do not allow them to build ships on the Huangpu River. Just like a factory, you can use the only large shipyard to slowly build one ship after another... That is the unique benefit of the technology research and development shipyard.

The two major oil companies urgently need a large number of oil tankers for service in a short period of time, so the time limit for these separate bidding orders is relatively short.

Under such circumstances, naturally we can only build some oil tankers with a carrying capacity of several thousand tons to respond to emergencies first. Later, when the number of large domestic shipyards increases and the demand slows down a little, we can slowly increase the number of oil tankers with a carrying capacity of [-] tons. .

At the same time, oil tankers are not only used on the ocean. The two major oil companies also need some oil tankers for offshore and inland river transportation to transport oil along the rivers to the inland hinterland.

Whether it is a large oil tanker or an ordinary small and medium-sized oil tanker, oil companies need...

Once these oil tankers are put into large-scale service, they will bring great convenience to the oil transportation in the Chu Empire, and the kerosene products extracted from oil will truly appear in thousands of households, lighting up every Chu country person!

At that time, the Chu Empire will officially enter the oil age!

(End of this chapter)