50s: Starting with a storage ring

Chapter 580 Adding fuel to the fire
Before the war, Baghdad was a typical developed country with very low prices. One dollar could be exchanged for 1000 cents, and a staple food, a flatbread, cost only two or three cents.

Strolling through the streets of Iraq, you'll be drawn to the wide, clean roads and the locals dressed in smart, fashionable clothes.

There are small parks with fountains every so often along the street, and there are many cars on the road.

At night, Baghdad is brightly lit and neon lights flash, and its night view is just as beautiful as that of major cities in developed countries in Europe and America.

Many locals speak fluent English, which reflects their high level of education.

This year, they also received a UN Gold Medal for this "national education miracle" of achieving an 80% adult literacy rate.

In Baghdad, 90% of families own a car and a house, especially teachers, whose average salary is as high as $60.

In the 80s, Baghdad's GDP was 20 times that of the rest of the country and twice that of South Korea, and its prosperity was unprecedented. Its citizens' living standards were once among the highest in the world.

Here, luxury cars are like a pass; no one would stop such a luxury car.

With the luxury car he had stolen, Sun Zhiwei traveled freely in the area, burying TNT under every oil well he saw along the way.

During this period, there were approximately 1 oil wells in the entire Middle East, with each side of the war owning about 2000 of them.

The country with the most oil wells is Gou Dahu, with more than 4000, while the others are scattered in neighboring countries.

Sun Zhiwei dropped more than 1000 TNT time bombs around Baghdad; then he crossed the border to the other side and did the same, dropping more than 1000 bombs there as well.

He buried these bombs hundreds of meters underground, in the soil next to the oil well pipelines, each with a timer set for a different duration.

By the time all this was done, it was already the evening of the 19th. Sun Zhiwei sent a telegram to Huang Mingyu, who was overseeing things at the New York Stock Exchange, informing him to proceed according to the original plan.

His original plan was to have the traders start buying oil futures starting on the 20th.

With oil prices currently at $28 per barrel, they need to buy $5 billion worth of crude oil within three days using ten times leverage.

This trading volume accounts for approximately 5% of the total crude oil trading volume on the New York Stock Exchange, and will cost him approximately $5 million.

Oil futures are such a sensitive commodity that too many people are watching them. He doesn't think he can control the initial price, and there will definitely be many people who oppose him.

There are just too many rich people in New York; his goal is simply to acquire as many chips as possible in the early stages.

As soon as the market opened on the morning of the 20th, Huang Mingyu's team began buying. Their actions were very synchronized and rigid; they just kept buying, buying, buying.

This orderly trading makes it easy for people to see that large clients are absorbing crude oil in large quantities.

As time went on, prices began to climb, and other customers started releasing more stock for them to absorb.

Huang Mingyu didn't have much experience in futures trading, so he didn't understand what was happening outside. But he had one good point: he executed orders very thoroughly.

Under his command, on the 20th, 21st, and 22nd, for three consecutive days, his team spent $1-2 million every day to absorb ten times the amount of crude oil futures from the market.

This caused the price of crude oil in the market to rise from $28 per barrel to $31 per barrel.

However, looking at the overall market, the market was not very active, with most of the strong players still continuously releasing their shares. Huang Mingyu's team remained the main force driving the market up. After the market closed on the 22nd, Sun Zhiwei had a routine meeting with Huang Mingyu.

The two decided to stick to their original plan for the following week: to keep buying, buying, buying, regardless of prices, only that the daily purchase amount would not be less than 1 million and not more than 2 million.

Sun Zhiwei is currently in a luxury hotel in Riyadh, where the environment is better and more peaceful than in Baghdad.

The gap between rich and poor in wealthy dog-owning families is vast, but they would rather be dogs in times of peace than people in times of chaos.

Even the worst of peaceful countries are better than those that are at war. Besides, this is the home of a wealthy family. Even if there are some leaks, it's enough for the poor to live a good life.

Sun Zhiwei's purpose in coming here is self-evident.

To raise oil prices, it's not enough for just the two warring nations to stir up trouble; something must also be done in the home of the largest oil exporter in the Middle East.

As midnight approached, he stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his hotel room, looking down at the brightly lit city at night.

This place doesn't look like a desert city at all; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it's a corner of Manhattan.

As the hour hand on his watch passed 12 o'clock, the distant northern sky gradually turned orange-red in Sun Zhiwei's eyes, as if the sun were rising slowly from the north at this early morning hour.

Just minutes earlier, hundreds of oil wells around Baghdad exploded into huge fireballs with a loud 'boom'.

A few minutes later, hundreds of oil wells in Tehran were also set off with timed TNT fireworks.

Oil production in both countries dropped by 20% overnight, a major blow to both economies.

The two sides were already locked in a fierce battle, and in the past few years they had a tacit understanding not to attack the oilfield facilities.

Now that this door has been opened, from today onwards, both sides will enter a mode of mutual destruction, with their oil fields becoming the primary targets of each other's air forces.

With today's highly developed global communication, news of hundreds of oil field explosions in two countries, even thousands of miles away in the desert, can spread throughout the world within an hour.

Those with the ability received the news immediately and relayed it to the New York futures market. The next morning, as soon as the market opened, the opening price of crude oil futures jumped by $3, and it continued to rise throughout the day.

The upward momentum is significantly stronger than in the previous days. Judging from the market transaction situation, other companies have already started to enter the market to compete for orders.

Huang Mingyu's team also received the news today, but they continued their buying spree at a leisurely pace, without increasing the total amount of acquisitions, maintaining a scale of 1-2 million.

Their scheduled purchase orders seemed to form the backdrop to a flurry of busy transactions.

The day was also not peaceful for the two warring nations, as their warplanes began attacking each other's oil fields, and dozens more oil fields were destroyed before nightfall.

Sun Zhiwei, who is currently in Riyadh, is also busy. He spent a whole day setting up all of the more than 1000 oil fields in the border area of ​​the dog-dominated country according to the model of the previous two companies.

Only after all this was completed did he return to Riyadh and take an evening flight back to New York.

Everything was ready, the timers had all finished, and there was no need for him to stay here any longer; it was time to go back and reap the harvest.

(End of this chapter)