Xiaomi Heavy Industry, its first entrepreneurial venture!

Chapter 221 The Crazy Mining Company! (Second Update!)
"Who told you to make this appointment?" Odysseus roared, but unfortunately, Evelyn had already left with the documents, leaving him with only her elegant back view.

Evelyn lived up to expectations; less than 10 minutes after leaving, she returned to the room with two young white men in suits.

“Mr. Odysseus, these two are the CIA agents we scheduled yesterday.”

"This is Mr. Tony, and this is Mr. Miller."

Evelyn gave Odysseus a knowing look, then gracefully bowed and left with a smile.

The door closed, and CIA agent Tony walked straight to Odysseus, sat down, smiled, and stated his purpose for being there:

“Mr. Odysseus, I apologize to you in advance.”

"It's inconvenient to disturb your work at this time."

"We have come here today with only one purpose."

"That is to confirm with you whether the paper published on the Science website is genuine or not."

As Miller stepped away to ask questions, he turned on his portable recording device.

Across from him, Odysseus glanced at the recording equipment, but instead of answering, he asked a question in return:
"Mr. Tony, which one is true and which one is false?"

Faced with the question, Tony didn't speak, but simply smiled and raised his hand, signaling Odysseus to continue.

Seeing that these two were truly boring, Odysseus didn't want to waste any more words. He leaned back in his chair, half-reclined on the desk, and with his legs raised on the desk, he answered like a rogue:

"I don't know whether this paper is real or fake."

"I'm just an operations director. I can read academic papers, but I don't really understand them."

"I can only say that I have not seen energy storage materials with such high energy density in other energy storage-related papers."

"Or, the people who submitted the article have mastered alien technology."

"Or, a whole bunch of them wrote this paper just for fun."

After saying all this, Odysseus lazily lay back in his chair, looking at Tony and the other man with amusement.

After watching for a while, he asked the question that had been bothering him:
"Logically, your CIA should also have relevant experts."

"It's not difficult to tell whether this is true or false, but..."

"I just want to know, why do you think this is true?"

Tony didn't answer the question. Instead, he wrote Odysseus's guess in his notebook, made sure he remembered it correctly, and then turned to look at Miller.

Miller packed up his recording equipment, nodded, and prepared to leave.

As the two reached the door, Tony turned back and asked again:
"Mr. Odysseus, if this were true, what kind of changes do you think it would bring?"

This time, Odysseus, unusually, didn't argue. Instead, he lowered his head, picked at the stubble on his chin, and replied:

"If this is true, the first industry to be changed should be the current mining industry."

“I’ve read that paper. Manufacturing that material requires lithium and nitrogen.”

"Lithium does not exist naturally. If humans want to obtain lithium, they can only extract it from salt lakes or minerals."

"However, with current extraction technology, the amount that can be extracted is very limited."

"To become a sole supplier, the mining industry must update its technology."

"To further improve our mineral screening, thereby obtaining more lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide."

"The second change is for all devices that require batteries."

"Smaller batteries and larger capacity can make various handheld, electrically powered devices lighter."

"It's a very broad market, and I can't say exactly how it will change."

"The third change is heavy equipment, namely the automotive industry?"

"A battery, a controller, an electric motor, a few bearings, and four wheels are all it takes to make the car move."

"The manufacturing difficulty will be far lower than that of gasoline-powered vehicles."

"These are all I can think of, but your people should be able to think of these things too, right?"

Hearing him answer his own question, Tony turned around and spoke up to answer his doubts:

"The strategy expert we hired doesn't even know these data."

After leaving those words, Tony led Miller out of the office, and soon the two appeared in the parking lot outside the office building.

Miller opened the car door: "Where to next?"

“Go back and write the report, and check the stock market while you’re at it. I don’t know what those people up there are thinking. The UAE itself issued a statement saying that the name was wrong, but they still have to waste time coming to investigate.” Tony opened the car door and got in. After Miller fastened his seatbelt, he floored the gas pedal and drove off towards the CIA office in Philadelphia.

The CIA's main business is external affairs; when dealing with domestic matters, apart from some special missions, most routine tasks are handled by the FBI.

Back in his office, after exchanging information with Miller, Tony sat down at his computer and typed away. In less than half an hour, he had written a thrilling investigation report, printed it out, and handed it to Chief Gray.

Having completed one task and closed the work interface, Tony opened the brokerage firm's trading website. After browsing the site for a while, he found a relatively well-known company in Philadelphia.

FMC Corporation

Although this company's main business is agricultural chemicals, the other party has lithium mines.

At this very moment, the company's stock is all in the green on stock trading websites.

This is the perfect time to buy at the bottom!

After studying the stock for a little over ten minutes, Tony pulled out his entire savings and bought $15 worth of stocks.

After copying the stock quotes, just as he was about to record some data, Chief Gray appeared in front of him again, handing him a document:
"Here you go, I have a new business opportunity. Take Miller with you."

Another mission!

Frustrated, Tony let out a miserable cry, resignedly picked up the gun, checked it, hung it up, and told Miller to leave.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city.

Fumihiro Corporation headquarters.

A group of impeccably dressed business professionals are staring blankly at the bright red section of a stock trading website.

After staring blankly for a long time, an old man who looked to be in his sixties, who might die at any moment, stomped his cane on the ground and glanced at everyone present:

"Can you tell me if we ran ads and used that damn paper?"

"But why didn't our stock go up?"

"Shouldn't it go up?"

The old man's words echoed in the large conference room, but everyone who heard him lowered their heads, and no one dared to reply.

FMC Corporation is a chemical giant that originated in Philadelphia and is very well-known throughout America.

FMC Corporation also controls a salt lake in Argentina – the Humbelemuelto Salt Flat.

Compared to the Alcatama Salt Flat, the Humbelemuelto Salt Flat has a lower lithium content, but FMC uses a unique selective adsorption technology to extract high-quality lithium carbonate.

Everything sounded wonderful. However, due to the 08 financial crisis, global lithium demand plummeted.

In 2009, the price of lithium carbonate dropped to $2500 per ton, while the price of lithium hydroxide dropped to $4000 per ton.

It's worth noting that at its peak, lithium carbonate prices soared to as high as $6000 per ton.

As for lithium hydroxide, its price once reached a peak of $8500 per ton.

Before the financial crisis, FMC executives discussed the existing market performance and reached a conclusion.

The boom in lithium mining is just around the corner.

We need to double our efforts.

This investment led to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the onset of the financial crisis.

Fortunately, the company's investments are all in heavy assets, the equipment is running and slowly making money. The money isn't much, but it's enough to maintain the company's basic operations; otherwise, the company would have had to dissolve on the spot.

But if this continues, the company will eventually fall apart.

You go back to your Detroit, I'll go back to my Ohio.

Therefore, the company's senior management has been trying to find ways to extricate the company from its predicament.

Now that Science has suddenly published this paper, whether it's true or not, it's an opportunity—an opportunity to drive up the stock price and then cash out and leave.

But to everyone's surprise, despite all the aggressive moves, media attention, and exaggerated claims, the stock remained in the green, with not a single drop in the red.

It's a headache.

Seeing that no one responded, the old man picked up his cane again and tapped it a few times: "Don't play dumb with me, all of you, speak up!"

"By driving up the company's stock price, you can also get higher returns, which is good for all of us. Don't try to hide it from me now."

Under the old man's pressure, a middle-aged man to his right gave an awkward smile and began to explain:

“Mr. Edward, our stock is a whole stock. Our main business is pesticides, and lithium mining is only a small part of our business.”

"We raised expectations for lithium mining, but that doesn't prevent the downturn in our other chemical businesses."

"If we want to rely on lithium mining to drive up prices, we need something more exciting."

The middle-aged man's words instantly deflated old Edward.

He wants to make money.

He wants to make a lot of money.

But fate had other plans to force him!

This is trying to drive him to his death!
What else do you want to be even more exciting?

If I had such a thing, I would have taken it out long ago, driven up the company's shares to the maximum, and then cashed out and ran away.

Why do we need to have this meeting with these people, talking for ages but not getting anywhere?

The old man wanted to curse, but his reason told him he couldn't.

If you don't criticize these people, they can still work for you. But if you do criticize them, they'll turn around and run away, then team up with their mortal enemies to destroy you.

Having calmed himself and organized his thoughts, old man Howard turned around and began to give instructions to those present:

"Our advertising cannot stop; we want all Americans, and even the world, to know."

"Our company, FMC, has the world's best refined lithium mine."

"If you want to obtain refined lithium ore, you have no choice but to come to us."

"Also, find some mercenaries to blow up the Chilean chemical mining plant. Chilean chemical mining has a large lithium production. As long as we blow up their factory, the related orders can be transferred to us."

"Even if we only take on a portion of it, we can still make a fortune."

"In short, everything is geared towards driving up the stock price and making a profit."

Leaving these orders behind, old man Howard limped away, leaning on his cane.

In the meeting room, those who remained looked at each other, then turned around and began assigning tasks to one another.

"Taylor, you'll go to Argentina later. Contact the mercenaries there and have them cross the Andes Mountains to attack the production facilities at this salt lake."

"Simon, keep an eye on the ads. If our ads don't work, pull out that paper, get more people to hype it up, and try to raise expectations as much as possible."

“Pierce…”

People at FMC are plotting to drive up the stock price of their competitors.

Chilean chemical and mining company headquartered in Santiago, Chile, is also discussing how to boost its stock price.

FMC was not the only company affected by the financial crisis; their Chilean chemical and mining operations were also impacted.

Compared to FMC, Chile's chemical and mining industries were more severely affected by the financial crisis.

In 2009, their revenue plummeted from $18.3 billion in 2018 to $12.7 billion, a drop of 30%.

Everyone was numb from the fall.

In the first quarter of 2010, their operating revenue increased by less than two percentage points compared to 2009.

If this trend continues, 2010 will be a very difficult year, and 2011 will be even more difficult.

Snapped!
The sound of a hand slapping the table echoed in the conference room. Once the sound subsided, everyone looked at the general manager in front of them.

Noticing the gazes of the crowd, General Manager Evans swept his cold eyes over them:

"Everyone, we are all people who earn a living on a salary. Last year, our income plummeted by 30%, but the international market has improved slightly this year."

"But our first quarter results were not ideal. If the second, third, and fourth quarters are still not ideal, then everyone's year-end bonuses will be in question."

"So now, you either do as I say, or you'll be fired."

After Evans's voice faded, the conference room fell completely silent. About ten minutes later, a female manager of average build stood up from a corner of the room.
“I agree with Manager Evans’ idea and agree to blow up part of the lithium mine production site.”

With this woman setting an example, the others gradually stood up and agreed to Evans's proposal to blow up part of the lithium mining and processing base.

After the last person in the meeting room had finished speaking, Evans waved his hand with satisfaction, signaling everyone to sit down.

"Now that you've agreed, let's discuss the specific details."

"First of all, it's our public relations department. We need to send out messages, and no matter what anyone says, we must stand firmly on the side of the author of that paper and help him advocate for it."

"Then there's the technology department."

“You need to identify those unimportant areas in the production facilities, clear out those places where people slack off, and replace them with diligent people.”

"Have them stay at the factory. As soon as they hear an explosion, they should spread the news as quickly as possible."

"Lastly, it's the demolition team's turn! You need to make a good handover with the technical department to ensure that the production facilities are blown up, but not damaged, and that no personnel are injured."

That's all I have to say. Meeting adjourned!

(End of this chapter)