The Chaebol Who Flies From Space - Chapter 95



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The Tycoon Who Flies Into Space Episode 95

Episode 95: Cheonghaedo Oil Field

5km west of Cheong-eo Island, Wando-gun, Jeollanam-do.

The newly discovered Namhae oil field, commonly known as the Cheonghaedo oil field, was the second oil field discovered in Korea.

The estimated reserves are 5.3 billion barrels, which is half the size of the West Sea oil field, and the recoverable reserves that can be extracted with current technology are 3.5 billion barrels.

Lee Jeong-bin, Vice President of Seohae Oilfield Development, came aboard the drilling ship to conduct a final inspection of the newly built oilfield facilities.

“How is the quality of the oil produced?”

Kwak Young-in, the head of the Cheonghae-do genetic research institute who was following him, answered confidently.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s the best. They take it as is and use it to make essential oils, and they are very satisfied.”

The oil already produced from one drilling rig was of superior quality.

The average drilling depth was 4,900 m, a depth that would have been unattainable with previous technology.

Vice President Lee Jeong-bin recalled the materials sent from Her.

He spent half his life developing oil, feeling the sea breeze all his life.

It all started when I unexpectedly got on a drilling rig as the Korea National Oil Corporation was formed.

“What happened to the drilling equipment made by WD Chosun? They said they were going to install it today?”

His confidant and close friend, Kwak In-young, scratched his forehead, which was covered with deep wrinkles.

“Not yet. The waves are high, making installation difficult, so we are postponing the installation by one day.”

The installation of offshore facilities is greatly affected by the weather.

“If the waves are rough, there’s nothing we can do. It’s much better than rushing and having an accident. Are you getting along well with the people from Herr?”

“I may be picky, but who am I? I went to the Stew and Hadang shopping district yesterday and had a big drink. He really is a heavy drinker, just like his appearance. He even drank a bottle of soju by himself yesterday.”

The person Kwak In-young called Stew was an expert in genetic development dispatched from Her, a resource exploration company.

Kwak In-young stuck with me and taught me production techniques.

“Yeah, you’re doing well. We should be friendly and suck up to each other’s skills. Until that guy passes away.”

“But he tells us everything without hiding anything. He used to not let other guys approach him, but he even shares core technologies without holding back. I thought he was crazy.”

“of course.”

“Huh? Do you know anything, hyung?”

Lee Jeong-bin looked blankly at Kwak In-young.

“Why are you looking at me like that? You looked at me like that before and I was really shocked.”

“I told you to mind your own business. You’re a seaman, so you’ll get in big trouble if you ignore the land. If you weren’t a salaried worker, you’d be out on the street already.”

Kwak In-young scratched his chin, which had grown a thick beard, at Lee Jeong-bin’s beating.

“That’s what the fortune teller said, so that’s why I didn’t come out of the stone cave and held on. If it weren’t for you this time, I would have just stayed there.”

“It’s brave of me that my sister-in-law has taken care of me until now.”

“I don’t know about anything else, but I’m the kind of person who doesn’t cheat.”

Lee Jeong-bin clicked his tongue as he watched Kwak In-young talking nonsense. This guy was just acting like he wanted to, occasionally speaking in a dialect while talking.

“Oh, please don’t be so stubborn and answer me.”

“Do you know who the major shareholder of Her that Steward works for is?”

“How can I not get that?”

“It’s the chairman. You ignorant bastard. The chairman owns 90% of Her shares.”

“Huh? Oh, so that means he and I are in the same group.”

“Yes, that means we are not hiding the core production technology and are telling it to them. If we learn the production technology properly, wouldn’t it be easier for them to work?”

The weakest part in Korea was production technology. Before the West Sea oil field, they had never done it properly.

Lee Jeong-bin, who returned to Kwak Young-in’s office after looking around the facility, took off the stuffy hard hat he was wearing.

While drinking disposable mixed coffee in a paper cup, Lee Jeong-bin recalled old memories with Kwak Yeong-in.

“I feel like I’m dreaming right now.”

“What do you mean? A dream?”

“Do you remember when we returned from Suriname ten years ago after the failure of oil exploration?”

“At that time? It was really gloomy. I had high hopes for 100% genetic development. That was the first time I felt like I would fail and have a long way to go.”

“Yes, everyone rushed in with high hopes, thinking that there was a high chance of success, but then they completely despaired. At that time, I also wanted to jump off the returning drilling ship into the sea. But now that we have succeeded in developing oil fields in the West Sea and now in the South Sea, not in another country, I am happy every day as if I am dreaming.”

“That’s the same for me. When I reveal my identity as working at Seohae Oilfield, the people at the bar go crazy. They’re really happy that the chairman created an oil fund or something.”

“Yes, it’s a fund created with profits from genetics.”

“There was a lot of noise about the extremely high yields.”

“Isn’t the Chairman the Hand of Midas? I’ve never heard of anyone who handles money as well as the Chairman. And when I see him not only handling money but also creating technology, I wonder if he’s the same person.”

Although he lived half his life surrounded by the sea breeze, Lee Jeong-bin was fundamentally an intelligent person.

He graduated from the best university in Korea and was quick to learn drilling technology. There were also several drilling-related patents created under Lee Jeong-bin’s name.

When it comes to oil drilling in South Korea, Lee Jeong-bin’s name is the first to come to mind.

However, when comparing himself to Chairman Cho Yong-won, he considered himself a firefly in front of the sun.

Isn’t the equipment needed for crude oil production coming out quickly at WD Shipbuilding?

When I asked the person in charge, I was astonished to hear that Chairman Cho Yong-won had designed most of the crude oil production equipment.

“Brother Ego, that’s wrong. If you compare yourself to people who aren’t human, life becomes tiring.”

“You are so simple that your life must be easy.”

“Yes. Yes.”

Lee Jeong-bin had a headache while talking to Kwak In-young.

We became close friends while riding on the same drilling rig in our youth and have never been apart since.

There was a time when I was trying to get off the drilling rig because I was bored, but Kwak In-young made such a fuss that I quit.

“Be thankful that you have survived without getting divorced like me.”

Lee Jeong-bin had to break up with his wife after five years of marriage because she had an affair.

Lee Jeong-bin had nothing to say when she heard that she was tired of waiting for her husband who was married and always wandering abroad.

“What can I do? I have to do it because it’s my destiny.”

I thought of the dirty Kwak In-young’s wife.

Even though her husband was busy and spent most of the year overseas on a drilling rig, she gave birth to two children and raised them well.

“I heard your eldest son Ju-woo is going to the military this time? The little kid who used to have a runny nose when he was little is going to the military.”

“It’s already like that. He needs to endure the tough military life. I’m worried because he’s going to join the Navy and board a ship.”

Even the normally peaceful Kwak In-young looked gloomy when he heard that his son was old enough to enlist in the military.

“What’s wrong with the Navy? Is the military these days different from our time?”

“Oh my, you were in the army, not a person who enlisted in the navy and boarded a ship like me.”

“Hey, don’t say that. The army is an army in its own way. In my time, I couldn’t sleep unless the barracks hit my butt with a field shovel during roll call. I was afraid they’d wake me up in the middle of the night and beat me up.”

“Huh, let’s just do the Navy. You can sleep comfortably there. You know how bad the bunks are in the Navy. Even on a speedboat, you can’t even cook. If you’re stuck in a small boat with veterans all day, that’s hell, as they say these days. Hell.”

In this way, Lee Jeong-bin and Kwak In-young comforted each other, saying that their military life was more difficult than theirs.

It was something I always said whenever the military topic came up.

“How is Hansu doing? He must be old enough to go to the military.”

The wife who had an affair abandoned her children and wandered outside, and after marrying and divorcing several times, the man said he was tired of living alone and took the son who was being raised by Lee Jeong-bin’s parents.

“I don’t know, I haven’t gotten a single phone call.”

“You should have called first. If you’ve been receiving child support regularly for your entire life, then that person should have a conscience. By the way, how about we merge now? You’re on your own now.”

His divorced wife received half of his monthly salary from the oil exploration company as child support.

“I’m comfortable living alone. Trying to mend a broken bowl is just a waste of effort.”

“If you don’t guide me like that, haven’t you thought about other people?”

“If you come now and marry another woman, you’ll only be ruining her life.”

I wasn’t comfortable throughout my married life.

I didn’t expect my extroverted wife, who loves meeting people, to just stay at home and do nothing, but she went out and about, saying she was working.

We were together for maybe one month a year.

After four years of marriage, the marriage fell apart.

“Then what fun do you have? You don’t like womanizing and you don’t drink much. I find it frustrating to look at you. You’re not even halfway there.”

Lee Jeong-bin laughed bitterly at Kwak In-young’s words.

“That’s right. I don’t know what fun I get out of life. If I said I get pleasure from digging for oil, I’d be crazy.”

When developing real genetics, we live forgetting that time has passed.

I have lived in all five oceans and six continents, including the East Sea, Suriname, Vietnam, Burma, and Nigeria.

If the West Sea oil field had not been developed, oil fields would have been developed in the Vietnamese sea.

Because of his personality of not looking back, he cut ties with his divorced wife, but that didn’t work out for his only child.

I sent people to check on my son several times.

“You said you found a house in Mokpo, but you didn’t even call me once.”

“I’ve never moved into a house that I’ve been to alone before.”

I got an apartment near Mokpo Bukhang, but I didn’t actually get to go there many times. Sleeping on the West Sea crude oil production base floating in the sea was my daily routine.

The fixed E1, which employees jokingly call the headquarters, was the largest crude oil production facility in the Seohae Oil Field.

Lee Jeong-bin even built an office there.

“So, you should go to the mainland. The employees will feel uncomfortable if the vice president stays there for a long time.”

“Who asked you to tell me?”

“Ahem, that’s not it.”

“No, I told him to bear it even if it was uncomfortable. I can only sleep well when I look at that light.

“What’s so great about burning gasoline and blowing your nose?”

“Because I desperately wanted to see that even in my dreams.”

Lee Jeong-bin looked at the fireworks that were bright even during the day with eyes that were in love.

“Hey, I told you that even you, hyung, are not in your right mind. I’ve been obsessed with oil and wandered around for half my life, but what makes you not in your right mind is that.”

Lee Jeong-bin didn’t react much to Kwak Young-in’s harsh words.

“I got a call from the boss yesterday.”

“What did you say?”

“The directive was to start expanding production facilities in earnest.”

“Huh, so you can just keep spreading it around like you’re doing now without paying attention?”

“When did we ever pay attention and pump oil like that?”

“No, that’s because you didn’t stick a straw in it even though you already decided on a place to drill.”

“How many times have I told you that we are producing slowly because oil prices are at rock bottom? From now on, we will build five drilling facilities in the West Sea oil field and three in the Cheonghae oil field.”

“Wow, I’m going to have to go back and do this. You’re doing eight at once? Three here?”

“The goal is to increase production to 2.5 million barrels by the end of the year. I told you to order the necessary drilling equipment from WD Shipbuilding, so prepare hard from now on.”

Lee Jeong-bin’s gaze turned towards the sea rough with the waves.

“This is crazy. You’re going to triple your production from what it is now in one year?”

“It’s been a bit shaky up until now.”

“From now on, I won’t have time to go to the bathroom to pee or brush my teeth.”

In the West Sea oil field, five drilling rigs were already in operation, producing 750,000 barrels of oil. The crude oil produced was collected from the FPSO and loaded onto tankers, and transported to places where crude oil refineries were in operation, such as Yeosu, Incheon, and Shanghai.

It was a great achievement made just one year after genetic development began.

If it weren’t for the Korean spirit of hurry, genetic development would still be a long way off.

But to increase this more than threefold, even if we worked day and night, there wasn’t enough time.

“Oil prices are at rock bottom right now. Wouldn’t it be a loss if we increased production? It was $25 a barrel.”

“The boss said that oil prices will continue to rise in the future.”

“Then we should increase it. If we increase production, we won’t have to import oil. You said that 2.3 million barrels is domestic demand.”

“Are you talking about the old days? Now it has increased a lot, reaching 3 million barrels per day. I heard that the refineries are running day and night. The amount of goods imported from China is enormous.”

“Oh, the refinery guys are getting excited because we’re digging for oil.”

“How much profit can you make by extracting oil right in front of your nose? I heard that the refining margin went up from $3 to $7.”

Even though oil prices fell, gasoline prices did not fall quickly.

By purchasing oil cheaply in front of their noses, refining it, and selling it at retail prices, their profits increased enormously.

Petrochemical companies are enjoying their best times since Dangun.

The unemployment rate, which had been soaring since the IMF, has also plummeted, and now businesses are complaining that it is difficult to hire people.