Chapter 1018: A late-night secret visit

(Error correction: The price of crude oil should be calculated in barrels, US$20-140 per barrel)

As the deputy secretary of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Liu Chengwei is under great pressure. The headquarter has just registered China National Offshore Oil Co., Ltd. in Hong Kong. He also serves as chairman and CEO of China National Offshore Oil Co., Ltd.

Registering an offshore company is to make final preparations for listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The head office divested the oil and gas exploration, development, production and sales business assets from the head office, which is about to be listed.

The heavy responsibility of listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong was on Liu Chengwei's shoulders. It was when the Party Group of the General Company was full of confidence in overseas listing. Then, the roadshow before the first listing in Hong Kong at the end of April made Liu Chengwei and the Party Group of the Company feel a blow. The coldness of investors made the listing prospects dim. The lead underwriter even suggested reducing the issuance plan and reducing the issuance ratio of 24% to 12%, and the issuance price would also drop.

It is better to give up this listing plan to modify the listing plan according to the suggestions of the rice underwriter. The Party Committee of the head office is already considering the response measures for the failure of the listing plan. These things are pressing on Liu Chengwei's heart and make him feel uncomfortable.

I was not in the mood to come to Xinting to participate in the early negotiation activities, but Tang Xueqian, deputy governor of Jiangnan Provincial Standing Committee, personally participated, so the Party Group of the General Company cannot be slackened. In the future, we must also expect to enter the refined oil market to get local support. The offshore oilfield support base project belongs to the base company system, and this part of the business does not belong to the listed company. It is not that Liu Chengwei, as the deputy secretary of the Party Group in charge of the base company system, attending such activities is unavoidable.

After attending the event, Liu Chengwei and his assistant, CNOOC's financial director Xie Zilei both had the fatigue of being hidden. At night, at the reception of the East China Base Company, he and Xie Lei were not in the mood to attend, and returned to the hotel early to discuss the final countermeasures for listing. Although he knew that Tang Xueqian, deputy secretary of the Jiangnan Provincial Party Committee, also lived in the Dongshan Hotel, he was not in the mood to visit.

"Dongdongdongdong..."

Liu Chengwei sat on the sofa to study the listing materials. He heard someone knocking on the door, and then he saw his secretary pushing the door and telling him: "Mr. Liu, Vice Governor Tang, called and wanted to come and meet you..."

Liu Chengwei didn't know what was necessary to meet Tang Xueqian in private besides business, but he had no reason to refuse. He handed over the materials to the secretary and went to the reception room with Xie Lei.

When Liu Chengwei saw Tang Xueqian coming, in addition to his secretary, there were two young people.

"Come here to introduce two people to Secretary Liu. Secretary Liu won't think I'm prone to it, right?" Tang Xueqian sat down with a smile. He was still used to calling Liu Weicheng's official position.

"How could it be?" Liu Chengwei guessed the identities of these two young people. He invited Tang Xueqian to sit down. While sitting down, he asked the others to sit down.

"This is Mr. Ye Jianbin, the president of Jinhu Commercial," Tang Xueqian pointed at Ye Jianbin and introduced it to Liu Chengwei.

Liu Chengwei subconsciously stood up from the sofa. Although he had never seen Ye Jianbin, Jinhu Commercial's shares in Dongshan Port Development Company were not very high, but as the promoter and planner behind the Dongshan Port project, Liu Chengwei was naturally familiar with Jinhu Commercial and the Ye family. In addition, with his position as a high position at the vice-ministerial level, he also knew enough about Jinhu. When he reached out to hold Ye Jianbin, his eyes were already looking sideways at the younger-looking young man beside Ye Jianbin, and hesitantly asked: "Who is this?"

"Zhang Ke takes the liberty to visit at night..." Zhang Ke stretched out his hand to hold Liu Chengwei, and then to Xie Lei, who was standing beside Liu Chengwei.

"..." Even though he guessed that the young man in front of him was that person, Liu Chengwei was still stunned for a moment, thinking that he was really young, and he shook his hand with the right strength and said, "How could he be aware of me? It should be a surprise to me. Who wouldn't want to meet you if you have a little knowledge of Jinhu in China?"

Zhang Ke also smiled slightly, everyone sat down together, exchanged greetings for a moment, and Zhang Ke went directly to the topic and asked Liu Chengwei: "I heard that RB Mitsui Products proposed to the National Planning Commission Energy Bureau to cooperate with the National Offshore Oil Corporation to develop the East China Sea boundary oil and gas field. What do the internal opinions of the Offshore Oil Corporation on this matter?"

The Japanese proposal has a strong political color. As a senior official at the vice-ministerial level, he should pay attention not to make comments in public or private occasions. Liu Chengwei looked at Zhang Ke in confusion, and was also a little wary. The young man in front of him could establish such a dazzling career in China, and there were many political relations behind Kumho, thinking that he should not ask so bluntly. Liu Chengwei felt a little unhappy, but he would not turn against him. He just said vaguely: "CNOOC has not received a formal notice yet. This may be the wishful thinking of Mitsui Products..."

"What if the listing financing plan of National Taiwan Oil Corporation fails this time," Zhang Ke asked aggressively again, "What if the listing financing plan fails, National Taiwan Oil Corporation will consider accepting Mitsui's proposal?"

After hearing Zhang Ke’s question, Liu Chengwei glanced over Tang Xueqian sitting beside him. Ye Jianbin looked at him and calmed down. Jinhu could promote the construction of Dongshan Island. They had a close relationship with Chinese businessmen in Southeast Asia. The capital strength behind them was strong. Of course, they would not talk about such sensitive political topics for no reason.

Kumho Commercial is headquartered in Hong Kong, and Kumho's backdoor listing in May 1997 can be regarded as a classic financing. The clever grasp of the timing makes many people only want to believe that Kumho's luck is extremely good.

Liu Chengwei said: "At present, the oil and gas business listing plan has encountered some difficulties, but Mitsui's cooperation proposal is another issue. The Party Group has not discussed it, so I am not good at asking you."

"I have asked someone to collect some materials for listing of the Ocean Oil Corporation, and I want to ask Mr. Liu for advice in person," said Zhang Ke. "Ocean Oil Corporation divested the assets and businesses of oil and gas exploration, development, production and sales into the proposed listed company, injecting a total of 11.1 billion net asset value. Unlike other state-owned enterprises that go overseas to divest debts, the Ocean Oil Corporation also placed 12.6 billion yuan of debt into the proposed listed company. The headquarters has no debt but still holds 4.2 billion yuan of cash. This is also something that investors can't understand..."

Liu Chengwei was very happy that Zhang Ke could ask these questions in front of him and explained patiently: "The oil and gas exploration, development, production and sales business assets injected into listed companies are the core assets of the head office, and are also high-quality assets, and the management transparency is also very high. The profit of this part of the business assets in 1998 was as high as 2.6 billion yuan, and the predicted profit in 1999 was 3.1 billion yuan. Relatively speaking, the professional company's asset quality is relatively poor and its profitability is weak. However, the exploration, development, production and sales of offshore oil cannot be separated from the support of the base company and professional company. These two must develop balancedly. At present, there is still a big gap in the quality of the two parts of the business assets, and there are also many gaps in profitability. How can we achieve balanced development? The head office held several meetings and discussed and discussed it, and decided to divest the debt to the listed company for digestion, and leave more cash for other businesses to develop-"

Xie Lei was thinking about the Mitsui proposal mentioned by Zhang Ke just now, thinking to himself that if the listing financing was successful, the head office would naturally reject the Japanese proposal with confidence. If the listing financing failed, even if it could eventually reject the Japanese proposal, the development of the demarcation oil and gas field would be delayed due to the lack of funds, which in fact allowed the Japanese side to delay. When Xie Lei thought of this, he looked happy. He knew that the two chief officials of Kumho came to visit overnight with the accompanying of the Executive Vice Governor of Jiangnan Province, there would be no reason for it. The head office's financing plan this time was one billion US dollars. If Kumho had the courage to build a port on Dongshan Island, it would really help solve the big problem.

"The Petroleum Corporation and the Petrochemical Corporation have plans to go public overseas recently. We have also carefully analyzed the gap between the three domestic oil companies," said Ye Jianbin. "In the oil industry, scale is the most important competitive indicator. In the domestic market, CNPC controls 67% of the oil production capacity and 40% of the refining capacity, Sinopec controls 22% of the oil production capacity and 60% of the refining capacity, CNOOC and foreign partners only control 10% of the oil production capacity and have no refining capacity.

From this point of view, offshore oil cannot be considered our best choice, but Mitsui and Kumho compete in many aspects. I believe Secretary Liu has heard that Kumho is willing to help the overseas listing of offshore oil..." Ye Jianbin did not talk about any issues of national interests. In the face of commercial behavior, those words were a bit empty, which would make people doubt Kumho had any political ambitions. Anyway, the conflicts broke out between Kumho and Mitsui were not a two-fold incident, and it was also semi-public to pull each other.

On the one hand, the difficulties encountered in listing made Liu Chengwei feel more pressured. On the other hand, if you want to be able to develop the East China Sea oil and gas resources alone, who would be willing to let foreign-funded companies intervene? Moreover, cooperation with Mitsui is very politically sensitive. Even if the political responsibility will be borne by the superiors, the head office will still bear the pressure of public opinion.

The ability of Kumho to participate in China Ocean's overseas issuance plan is probably the best news that Liu Chengwei has heard during this period. Since he was on the table and talked directly, he also asked directly: "We plan to raise one billion US dollars in financing this time. This is the number approved by the State Council. This number is unlikely to be compressed. How much can Kumho share?" He looked at Ye Jianbin and then looked at Zhang Ke.

"Kumho can take out $200 million to $300 million," said Zhang Ke. "In addition, Kumho still has some influence in Southeast Asia. I can give Mr. Liu a promise here to share at least $400 million in financing for the National Offshore Oil Corporation..."

It is enough. If Kumho comes forward to undertake a financing task of at least 400 million US dollars, it will give other investment institutions and small and medium-sized investors a strong confidence. As for the proposal to boycott Mitsui Products, the National Offshore Oil Corporation naturally takes this attitude.

Liu Chengwei also knew that the head office had only 4.2 billion yuan in cash, but the debt was as high as 12.6 billion yuan. The financial pressure was great. If you want to break through with the suppression of PetroChina and Sinopec, the overseas listing financing plan should not be lost. Otherwise, relying solely on the central government's financial support of more than 10.2 billion yuan would be far from reaching a large-scale breakthrough. If you can raise 1 billion US dollars overseas this time, you can add 500 billion yuan to the bank to the bank, and you will suddenly have 1300 billion yuan in cash, and the pace of expansion will be greater, and you can be more proactive when cooperating with international oil companies such as Shell.

Xie Lei looked happy. The haze that had been pressing on his heart these days suddenly disappeared. He was also a little strange. Jinhu had never contacted them before. If Jinhu really had a financial investment plan for CNOOC, wouldn't he have been in contact with him long ago?

Kumho participated in CNOOC's overseas listing plan, at most it was financial investment and could not directly intervene in CNOOC's operations. Even if Kumho took out US$300 million, it only accounted for 7.2% of CNOOC's total equity. Compared with the absolute holding of CNOOC Corporation, it is not qualified to recommend board members.

Kumho built a ten-million-ton steel industry base through Dongshan Steel and Donghai Joint Steel Group and eventually integrated into a super-large steel group. Kumho nominally has the right to recommend two board members. In addition, Kumho Commercial has the right to purchase part or all of the raw iron ore of the Steel Group. The penetration and impact on the Steel Group is absolutely difficult to compare with ordinary financial investment.

Even if you know that participating in overseas listing of state-owned enterprises in the form of financial investment will have good returns, but Kumho Commercial Business is not here. Kumho Commercial Business needs to penetrate and influence the industrial chain more and promote the balanced development of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, so you are more willing to directly promote the investment in large-scale projects such as the Dongshan Island port construction project and the tens of million-ton steel industry base.

The situation of CNOOC should be considered an exception. The ambition of sniping Mitsui Products for the demarcation of oil and gas fields is on the one hand, and on the other hand, after CNOOC obtains huge financing, CNOOC will naturally strive to break through the industry. The best place for CNOOC's industry to break through is in Xinting Dongshan Port, in Jiangnan Province, and on the edge of the control of CNOOC and Sinopec.

At this point, Tang Xueqian, who had been silent, said: "The province also hopes to see that the National Offshore Oil Corporation can successfully go public overseas. After all, CNOOC successfully started the development of the boundary oil and gas fields. The production support base project we discussed today will have practical significance. In addition, although the Central Unification Department wants to integrate Kingsoft Petroleum's refining business and gas station business with Sinopec, Sinopec's speed is always a bit slow..."

Only then did Liu Chengwei understand the intention of Tang Xueqian, Zhang Ke and Ye Jianbin to visit late at night. Jinhu participated in the issuance of CNOOC's overseas stock in the form of financial investment. CNOOC not only must firmly resist Mitsui Products' greed for the demarcation of oil field gas, but also develop Jiangnan Province into CNOOC's onshore industrial base.
Chapter completed!