Sail across the sea

Can Chapter 400 be considered heartless?
Zhong Jiangang, the deputy county head of Gu'nan County in charge of industry, received Pei Hengxue and Gao Fan in his office.

Since Pei Hengxue had already informed them of his intentions, Zhong Jiangang also summoned Shang Weimin, the director of the county's Economic Commission, and Yu Zhiping, the director of the Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, to listen to the instructions from "above."

After exchanging pleasantries, Pei Hengxue introduced Gao Fan's identity to everyone: a member of the National Rare Earth Remediation Working Group and a special assistant to the Provincial Rare Earth Remediation Joint Working Group.

At the beginning of this year, the Rare Earth Remediation Working Group, jointly established by the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources and the Ministry of Chemical Industry, was officially formed. Zheng Linong put Gao Fan into this group. Because the members of the group were all quite influential, a nobody like Gao Fan could only be listed as a member, and he would not be given any title.

However, as a member of the national working group, returning to the province takes on a different meaning. And once in the county, he can certainly act like an imperial envoy.

"In accordance with the unified national plan, the Zeyan Institute completed the research and development of the second-generation rare earth extraction process, namely the in-situ leaching method, in January of this year. After trial production at the Youtang demonstration mine, it has met the expected process requirements, increasing resource utilization to over 50%, and also leaving room for further development. This work has received joint commendation from the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources, the Ministry of Chemical Industry, and the Ministry of Metallurgy," Gao Fan said.

"It's amazing!"

"Truly worthy of Zeyan Institute."

"Congratulations, Director Pei!"

Zhong Jiangang and others congratulated Pei Hengxue.

Whether the technology is good or not is another matter. The fact that Zeyan Institute was able to receive a joint award from several ministries is a great thing. It means that the future of Pei Hengxue and other leaders of the institute is bright.

"The National Rare Earth Remediation Team requires that, in order to save precious rare earth resources to the greatest extent and reduce waste, the Zeyan Institute should cooperate with local governments to promote new processes as soon as possible, and completely phase out pond leaching in several southern provinces within a maximum of two years, switching entirely to in-situ leaching processes," Gao Fan continued.

This wasn't exactly a case of falsely conveying imperial orders. After the new technology from the Zeyan Institute passed technical evaluation, several central ministries did indeed put forward the requirement to quickly phase out the old technology, but the specific steps and time requirements were still under discussion.

This also involves how well Gao Fan's pilot work in Zeshan went, and several ministries will determine the final plan based on Zeshan's experience.

Zhong Jiangang nodded and said, "The central government's requirements conveyed by Assistant Gao are extremely important and timely. Zeyan Institute has developed such a good new process, and we must seize the time to promote it. Lao Shang and Lao Yu, what do you think? Shouldn't you two, along with the Agricultural Bureau, jointly issue a notice requiring all rural rare earth mines to immediately switch to the new process?"

"This is necessary," Shang Weimin stated, but then added a twist, "However, issuing a notice is one thing, but whether each village can resolutely implement it is another matter entirely. Since the implementation of the contract responsibility system in rural areas, the township's ability to control farmers has greatly diminished."

“Those mine owners all signed contracts with the township. As long as they pay the contract fees to the township on time, the township can’t find a reason to require them to adopt new technologies. As long as the production technology is not illegal, the government can’t really regulate it.”

Zhong Jiangang asked, "Didn't Director Pei say that the original leaching process damaged vegetation and polluted the environment? Can we use this as a reason to ask them to change the process?" Yu Zhiping replied, "Our Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources has discussed this matter with the mines below many times. The Environmental Protection Bureau has investigated environmental pollution, but besides imposing fines, there's nothing else they can do. Mining inherently pollutes; if we don't allow them to pollute, we can't mine."

"Finally, it was decided to charge an environmental remediation fee of 100 yuan per ton of ore to restore the soil and vegetation. It was said that the funds were earmarked for this purpose, but I don't know whose account this money is in now."

The last sentence was quite meaningful. Pei Hengxue and Gao Fan could both tell that there was a conflict arising from the uneven distribution of the spoils among the various commissions and bureaus in the county.

"There's another reason why the mine owners below aren't very enthusiastic about adopting the new technology: they've complained that the fees charged by the Zeyan Institute for guiding them on the new technology are a bit too high, exceeding their affordability," Shang Weimin said, turning his attention to Pei Hengxue.

“Yes, yes, I’ve also heard some mine owners say that Zeyan Institute’s technology promotion this time is quite different from the past. In the past, it was about serving the people, but now… hahaha.” Yu Zhiping didn’t finish his sentence, but chuckled.

The following remarks were rather unpleasant, stating that Zeyan Institute is now serving the RMB.

Pei Hengxue also knew this joke. He chuckled along with Yu Zhiping and said, "The Zeyan Institute's mission to serve the people remains unchanged. Director Yu can rest assured about this. If you have the chance, please explain it to us."

"Regarding the standards for technical service fees, we consulted with the Provincial Nonferrous Metals Company. The general principle is to follow the general laws of commodity economy and add a small, necessary profit to the cost as our fee standard."

“You’re not making just a little profit,” Shang Weimin said. “I heard that you charge 1 yuan for a small mine. For larger mines, you charge 2 or 3 yuan. I heard that you roughly estimated the technical service fee for that mine in the county to be 40 yuan. Tsk tsk tsk, 40 yuan! Our county didn’t have that much money in its entire budget a few years ago.”

“The 40 is calculated based on 10 years of production, which is only 4 a year,” Pei Hengxue said. “Gunan County’s state-owned rare earth mines have more than a dozen mines, and they are all large and rich mines. They can produce 400 tons of oxides a year, with an output value of more than 1000 million. It’s really not high to spend 4 as a technical service fee.”

“You can’t do it this way,” Shang Weimin said. “You’re just sending a few people to provide some guidance. Can that take a month? Even if your Zeyan Institute pays a high salary, with each person earning over 200 yuan a month, a few people wouldn’t even reach 1000 yuan, right? Yet you’re asking for 4 yuan in service fees right off the bat. Isn’t that outrageous?”

“It also costs us money to develop this technology, and that money will be included in the technical service fee,” Pei Hengxue said. “Initially, we approached Gunan County, saying we wanted to find a mine to conduct industrial trials, but Director Yu said that the production tasks of each mine were tight and they could not cooperate.”

"In the end, we went to the Youtang Township government and paid a contract fee of 30 yuan to rent a mountain. We spent more than 300 million yuan in total on exploration, well drilling, and repeated adjustments to the plan."

“This money is all borrowed. If we don’t pay it back soon, the interest alone will be over 100,000 yuan a year. You do the math. We charge 10,000 yuan per mine. Can we be considered greedy?”

(End of this chapter)