Chapter 202 Production Capacity and Market

As expected by the Executive Committee, due to the civil war in Vietnam, all large salt fields in the war zone have ceased production. After the salt supply in the south was forced to be interrupted for several months, northern Vietnam has fallen into a certain degree of salt shortage.

The price of salt on the market has skyrocketed, and there is a price but no market. Even if you have money, you can no longer buy salt through normal channels.

Under such circumstances, the one thousand kilograms of refined salt shipped from Heitu Port immediately became a hot commodity. The other party heard that they could get the salt just by using grain, so they agreed to the offer from Heitu Port without even paying back the price.

Conditions for export. The Red River Delta east of Hanoi is a land of abundant rice production, and the price of grain is extremely low. The local FOB price is only one-third of the price of grain in Yazhou, which is about less than two taels of silver per thousand kilograms.

, compared with the price of refined salt in the Vietnamese market, which has skyrocketed to more than 400 taels per kilogram, the difference is already two hundred times!

So Heitu Port shipped one thousand kilograms of refined salt to test the market, and it was successfully exchanged for more than 100,000 kilograms of rice. However, because Heitu Port did not anticipate this situation, they only went to one ship for the transaction, and things came to a head.

Unable to transport so much rice back at once, the transaction had to be completed in two stages. After completing the transaction, the Black Earth Port Management Committee immediately sent an urgent call to the base camp, canceling the original food support requirement and applying for the transfer.

All this transportation capacity is replaced by salt.

Of course, this kind of hugely profitable transaction cannot continue for a long time. The Vietnamese official will definitely open up new salt fields to supply the needs of the people. Therefore, Heitu Port plans to seize this limited time and conduct several more private salt transactions with the Vietnamese. Open it first

With this gap, even if the supply of salt in Vietnam recovers in the future, Heitu Port will still be able to continue to profit from it by further reducing prices.

Gu Kai, director of the Black Tu Port Management Committee, even claimed in the telegram that as long as the production capacity of the base camp is sufficient, it is entirely possible to control the North Vietnam salt market at this opportunity. At the same time, Gu Kai also suggested that the base camp send its own caravan to South Vietnam, because

According to what is currently known, the production capacity of the salt fields concentrated in the warring areas of Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, Nam Quang Binh, Hue, and Quang Nam accounts for more than 70% of domestic salt production. The places affected by the shutdown of these salt fields

Not only North Vietnam, the areas ruled by the Nguyen family in the south are also facing the dilemma of salt shortage. For the Crossing Group, this is simply a windfall from heaven, and it will not grow until it grows old!

As long as the trade window is opened, there will be channels for the next arms export plan to Vietnam. Regarding the military conflict between North and South Vietnam that will last for several years, the Executive Committee has always regarded it as a good way to expand its own strength.

Opportunities, and has already made plans on how to make good use of this situation. Selling arms and absorbing Vietnam's population and wealth will be the main theme of the Crossing Group's policy towards Vietnam in the next few years. However, before realizing these beautiful visions, the Executive Committee must first

We must try to meet the current trading needs - supplying large quantities of salt to the Vietnamese market.

Based on the current own salt production, the demand for salt in the Vietnamese market is completely a bottomless pit. Even if all the production capacity of the Salt Works Commune is filled in, it is estimated that it will not be able to fill this pit. That is why the Executive Committee is eager to expand production capacity. It’s just that

These three directions of salt import have completely exhausted the local salt production capacity. However, at this juncture, the Liaison Office of Guangdong and Guangdong sent another telegram requesting to expand the salt transportation volume from the mainland.

As the fourth export direction, the mainland region, due to its huge potential market, salt consumption will completely exceed the sum of the first three export directions. Even if it is only the two provinces of Fuzhou and Guangzhou, the salt required is not a small salt farm commune.

It can be supplied. And now "Furuifeng" has sent personnel to various state capitals in the two provinces to explore sales channels. If everything goes well, the private salt sales network in these two provinces will be fully rolled out, and it is estimated that this year

It will be early next year.

Faced with huge market demand, but unable to eat it in one bite due to insufficient production capacity, this sweet trouble is simply a torment for the Executive Committee. On September 10, the Executive Committee had to hold a special discussion

The meeting will bring together the heads of relevant units to study how to expand the production capacity of the salt farm as soon as possible.

The meeting first introduced the current production situation by An Xi, the leader of the Salt Farm Commune: "There are now a total of 665 members of the Salt Farm Commune, of which the proportion of young and middle-aged labor is about 65%, which is basically enough based on the current production scale.

As we all know, most of the salt field is composed of salt fields and salt drying ponds. These two items occupy more than 80% of the entire working area of ​​the salt field. However, the actual development area of ​​the salt field currently only accounts for slightly more than one-half of the entire planned area, and there are still a large number of

The available area has not been put into use. I think if the development and construction of these areas can be accelerated, a significant increase in salt production can be achieved in the short term."

"In addition, most of the current seawater irrigation operations still rely on wind energy, animal energy and even manpower, and the work efficiency is very limited. I suggest that the executive committee allocate a batch of steam power equipment to the salt farm as soon as possible, even if it is charcoal-burning. Regarding this aspect

I have made reports five or six times, and I hope the executive committee can pay enough attention to it!"

Tao Donglai coughed dryly and said: "Comrade Anxi, everyone has read your report and attached great importance to it, but the salt farm commune has not been allocated steam power equipment. There are some objective reasons for this. Our previous steel production capacity

Insufficient, in order to expand production capacity, almost all the steam power equipment manufactured has been invested in expanding reproduction. Roger, please tell me about this situation."

Roger and Shi Diwen were both senior mechanical technicians before time travel, and they are currently working as supervisors in the machining department. Shi Diwen is mainly responsible for the development of ordnance, while Roger has been engaged in manufacturing steam-powered machinery.

Work.

Roger shrugged and said in Mandarin, which he had become proficient in: "As Mr. Tao said, we have mastered the technology of making steam engines, but the limited raw materials limit our production speed. Now we make a

A twenty-horsepower steam engine takes five days. If necessary, we can build three such steam engines at the same time, but the problem is that our steel production cannot keep up..."

Liu Xingli raised his hand and interjected: "Let me interrupt, the bottleneck of steel production is not our production level or production process, but fuel! Without enough coal coke, we cannot smelt steel in large quantities. I believe this.

Everyone knows very well. As long as the Black Earth Port and the Shipping Department can ensure sufficient fuel supply, the smelting workshop can also ensure sufficient steel supply to the manufacturing department."

Seeing that Yue Zhiyun was about to come out to clear his name, the topic seemed to be getting further and further away. Tao Donglai quickly stopped this rambling argument: "The theme of today's discussion is to expand the production capacity of the salt farm. All the leaders should pay attention to their remarks.

, don’t make it a habit to go off topic!”

Bai Kesi said: "I think so, since the current objective situation requires us to expand the production capacity of the salt field, we might as well temporarily favor the salt field commune in terms of policy and material supply, such as the recently produced steam engines, cement, and newly arrived immigrants.

, can be given priority to the Saltworks Commune."

No one raised objections to Bai Kesi's suggestion. Everyone is very clear about the current external environment. Salt can be said to be the industrial output product with the lowest technical threshold and production cost, and it has a huge consumer market. Although the export price of salt is only

However, one hundred yuan per ton is very cheap compared to other industrial products, but no matter how low the price is, it cannot offset the large volume. One day, if we can sell tens of thousands of tons per month, the income will be considerable.

Considerable. And the biggest difference between table salt and other industrial products is that table salt is a necessity, and the price will not affect its actual demand in the market. This is incomparable to other products. At present, domestic and foreign

The demand for salt is huge, so it is reasonable for the Executive Committee to give priority to the needs of the Saltworks Commune.

However, Anxi did not seem to be satisfied with this arrangement. He shook his head and said: "I'm afraid this is not enough."

Tao Donglai said in astonishment: "How do you say this?"

"We can first calculate the theoretical output that the Saltworks Commune can achieve in the future." Anxi stood up and walked directly to the whiteboard in front of the conference room. He picked up a marker and started writing. As he wrote, he explained: "The location where the Saltworks Commune is located

The area is a mountain valley, so the actual developable area is very limited. At the beginning of the planning, we knew very well that the available area here was only about 100 hectares."

"Based on our current production capacity, the annual output per hectare is about 14 to 15 tons. This output is very low compared to the output of the Hainan Salt Farm in later generations, only about a quarter. Even if we pass various

This kind of technological transformation uses a large amount of mechanical equipment to increase work efficiency. However, limited to the objective technology and management level, the output that can reach two-thirds of future generations is probably the limit, that is, the annual output per hectare is about forty tons. Calculated this way

At this time, the annual output of the Saltworks Commune is about 4,000 tons, and at best it will not exceed 5,000 tons."

Anxi put down the marker and turned to the crowd and said: "This output should be enough to supply the needs of internal industrial production plus the salt consumption of residents of the entire Hainan Island, but if we also need to carry out large-scale export to two national-level markets at the same time,

, I’m afraid there is still a big gap.”

Tao Donglai understood what he meant and nodded: "Are you trying to say that we should start planning a new salt farm now?"
Chapter completed!