Chapter 291 Conservation Mining

As global climate problems become more serious.

At the same time, the food procurement negotiations in Magic City will be taking place.

As the temperature rises in the vast desert areas of the northwest region, agricultural production or desert transformation has gradually begun.

At this time in the Tengger Desert, if you look down from outer space, you can see a large circle of lush green in the south, east and southwest of the entire Tengger Desert.

Apparently these lush green areas are the ones that were converted into soybean farms last year.

As the temperature rises, the temperature in the southern part of the Tengger Desert in mid-March has reached the conditions for the black beans to sprout again. With the help of the large amount of water and nutrients stored in the tubers, these black beans planted last year have popped up from the ground like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. In less than a week, they have dyed the farms on the edge of the desert green.

The area where the desert is being transformed is getting closer and closer to the heart of the desert.

Currently, most of the entire Tengger Desert is contracted to COFCO Group, and the part of the Tengger Desert near Minqin County has been subcontracted to Hailufeng Company.

As the application areas of Xiansi soybeans increase, the required production capacity is also increasing. Therefore, Hailufeng Company did not stop the desert transformation from last winter to early spring this year, and continued to advance into the heart of the Tengger Desert.

Of course, the desert area in Minqin County is very vast, almost 1.3 square kilometers, which is almost 1950 million mu.

At present, in addition to a part that will be retained as nature reserves, industrial zone reserve land, and urban reserve land, about 1800 million acres will be transformed into farmland and pastures.

Hejiajing Town, located in the north of Minqin County, about 80 kilometers away from Minqin County, is a small town almost completely surrounded by the desert.

The town had just completed a trunk road connection with Minqin County.

This is also the core town on the way to the Fifth Farm in the north. After all, if you continue to go north, you will reach the real uninhabited desert.

But there is a lot of trouble here.

The main problem is water.

Although Liangzhou, located upstream, has allocated nearly 5000 million cubic meters of fresh water to Minqin County, downstream, through new technologies and industrial upgrades, the water is transported to Minqin County through the Shiyang River.

However, part of this water is used for ecological replenishment, part is used for industrial purposes, and a small part is used for residential purposes.

Due to the diversion of the upstream reservoir, the lower reaches of the Shiyang River currently stop near Hongshaliang Town, more than 30 kilometers away from Hejiajing Town. Therefore, the local area mainly relies on digging wells for water.

Although Xiansi soybeans do not need watering at all in the later stage, they must be watered in the early stage when they are just sown, which definitely requires digging wells to get water.

As the surrounding farms continue to expand, a large number of farm workers will be needed, and the water used for production and life will increase day by day. Simply relying on digging wells to extract water and recycling water is not a long-term solution.

Shi Tiansheng, the farm manager, was about to report the situation to the Minqin branch when his phone suddenly rang.

“Hello? Is this Manager Li?”

“It’s me. Weren’t you worried about the water problem before?”

“Yes, I was just about to report this to Manager Li. Does the company already have a solution?”

“Well, don’t worry. The company has discussed with Minqin County and will build a water transfer station at the end of the Shiyang River in Hongshaliang Town, and then lay a pipeline to it. It will be completed in about ten days.”

“Okay, but how much water can we allocate?”

“About 300 million cubic meters, plus recycled water and groundwater, can provide living water for at least tens of thousands of people.”

“That’s good.” Shi Tiansheng thought of something else: “Manager Li, there is one more thing. The core town of the Fifth Farm is planned to be built in Hejiajing Town. Our farm covers an area of ​​more than one million mu. In the future, we will have about 3000 employees. Together with their families and local residents, this town may have more than people…”

“Okay, you want to talk about employee accommodation, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s very simple. It will be solved for you in a few days. Then the Minqin Special Engineering Company under the Minqin Group will contact you, and you can just follow their arrangements.”

“Is that so? Sure.”

“Now let’s get down to business.”

“Manager Li, please speak.”

“The company has arranged 500 farm workers for your farm. They will arrive in about a month. You need to make arrangements for this.”

“clear.”

“The second thing is about the mining area northwest of Hejiajing Town.”

“Mining area?”

“Yes, it’s the iron mine on the provincial border.”

“Oh, I know.” Shi Tiansheng finally remembered where it was, but he was very curious, what does this kind of mining work have to do with their farm?
“Although this iron ore will not be developed on a large scale, a small mining site needs to be built. Minqin County has handed over the mining rights of this iron ore to Minqin Group. Therefore, Minqin Group will set up an iron ore mining company in Hejiajing Town. They will need to send about 300 employees. Their dormitories will be with you. Therefore, when arranging dormitories for employees, try to arrange them in the northwest area to facilitate commuting for both parties.”

“Understood. I will communicate this matter with Minqin Group.”

“That’s it! If anything happens, call me.”

“Okay, goodbye, Manager Li.”

“Ah.”

After hanging up the phone, Shi Tiansheng came out of the temporary tent and looked at the sand blowing in the strong wind. He picked up the telescope, opened the protective cover, and could barely see a part of the area.

Fortunately, the company’s desert reconstruction team is very experienced. They leveled and filled the land, laid out grass grids, and used the tubers of soybeans for sowing.

After standing for a while, sand got into his nose and made him sneeze a few times.

“Damn it, the wind and sand are too strong here in spring, bah bah bah…” After just saying two sentences, I felt sand entering my mouth.

A voice shouted from the other side of the temporary station: “Hoohoo… Director, someone is looking for you.”

Hearing the voice of his assistant Xiao Zhou, he turned around and saw several people walking towards him wearing masks and goggles.

Wait for them to come to the door.

“Director, they are Mr. Fei Hao, the general manager of Minqin Mining Company, and Mr. Ma Xinguo, the deputy general manager.” Assistant Xiao Zhou turned around and introduced Shi Tiansheng to the two of them: “General Manager Fei, Deputy General Manager Ma, this is Mr. Shi Tiansheng, the director of the Fifth Farm.”

Fei Hao took off his mask and goggles and smiled helplessly: “Hello, Director Shi, we will be neighbors from now on. The wind and sand here are too strong, and I am not used to it.” Shi Tiansheng did not show much enthusiasm, but just treated him as an ordinary colleague: “Hello, Director Fei, I am not used to the wind and sand here either. It is better in Minqin County. It is surrounded by farms and the strong wind can’t blow up the sand.”

He looked at the dusty Fei Tian and the other man, and opened the tent door: “Come in and chat!”

“it is good!”

After entering the tent, we found that the space inside was quite large and all kinds of office facilities were available.

At the door, he patted himself with a feather duster to sweep away the dust.

After they sat down, Xiao Zhou made tea and water for them.

“Mr. Fei is here to discuss matters concerning the dormitory area, right?”

Fei Hao smiled and nodded: “That’s right, I just called Manager Li of your branch, and he asked me to communicate with you.”

“Manager Li did talk to me about this matter just now. In principle, I have no objection. I can give you the land on the northwest side of the town.”

Before the establishment of their Minqin Fifth Farm, they actually obtained a real estate development license from Liangzhou City. However, this real estate project was not managed by their branch, but was affiliated to Hailufeng Real Estate Development Company.

Considering that about 5000 households will be accommodated in the future, at least 5000 houses will be needed. Considering the vast land and sparse population in the area, as well as the special nature of the farm’s work, the local employee community is not concentrated in one area, but scattered in five directions of the town.

They are the North District, East District, West District, Northwest District, and Northeast District.

“Will your company arrange 300 people here?”

“Maybe more than 300. In addition, I hope to retain space for future expansion. After all, we may need to expand production in the future, although this possibility is not high.” Fei Hao did not tell about the future arrangements. After all, he didn’t know.

This iron mine was discovered accidentally by Hailufeng Company during the exploration of radioactive elements and heavy metal elements in the soil of the farm.

The iron mine is located at the junction of Gansu Province and southern Mobei, with about one-third in Minqin County, Gansu Province and two-thirds in southern Mobei. The burial depth is approximately 30 to 170 meters. The upper layer is covered by moving sand dunes, and the iron ore is in the sandstone layer below.

It is mainly composed of hematite, with reserves of about 17 billion tons and a grade of about 38% to 45%, making it a relatively good rich mine.

Currently, Minqin Mining Company is developing with a mission, namely protective development.

Only 100 million tons are allowed to be mined each year.

Unless there are major problems with the foreign iron ore import channels, this iron mine will not be mined on a large scale, so it is approved for protective mining.

In fact, since last year, a large number of new mining areas have been discovered in uninhabited areas such as the Tengger Desert, Badain Jaran Desert, and the Taklimakan Desert.

After all, modern large-scale farm-style agricultural production must conduct comprehensive testing of the surrounding soil for radioactive elements, heavy metal elements and harmful components to ensure that there are no problems in the planting area before agricultural production can be carried out.

And these new mining areas were discovered in this process.

However, large-scale development is not allowed in the country. Instead, protective mining is carried out in some better mining areas.

The scale of domestic mineral imports is now increasing. It is not because the country does not have corresponding mineral reserves, but to suppress the expansion of the trade deficit.

Of course, there is another purpose for doing this, which is to protect domestic mineral resources.

However, protecting mineral resources does not mean not developing them at all.

If it is not developed at all, once there are major problems with foreign import channels, it will take at least two to three years to increase domestic ore production capacity in a short period of time.

After all, it takes time to build a mining area, it takes time to produce mining equipment, it takes time to recruit and train personnel, and it also takes time to bring equipment into the mining area.

Moreover, if mining is not carried out at all, there will be a shortage of domestic mining talent, and there will also be major problems in the production and maintenance of mining equipment.

Similar to the Hejiajing Iron Mine developed by Minqin Mining Company, although it is limited to mining 100 million tons of iron ore per year, this leaves a lot of room for increasing production capacity.

For example, if we run it 3 hours a day, we can basically increase production capacity by about times in a short period of time.

Some of the basic supporting facilities in the mining area can ensure that the mining area can increase its production capacity to 1000 million tons of iron ore per year within half a year, and expand its production capacity to about 3000 million tons per year within two years.

This is also the reason why the local government handed over the mining rights to the Minqin Group, because in the face of this kind of protective mining, mining companies will still face certain pressure even if they have some infrastructure subsidies.

Fortunately, there is no need to build a railway into the mining area, otherwise the transportation cost alone would make the iron mine in the desert a loss-making business.

The reason why there is no need to build a special railway to transport mines is because there are large transport airships in the country.

Although the cost of transporting iron ore by large transport airships is slightly higher than inland river transportation, it is at least much cheaper than railways and roads. In addition, airship transportation has the advantages of straight-line distance and speed, so the overall cost-effectiveness is actually similar to that of water transportation.

This is also an important element that enables China to develop the desert hinterland.

Otherwise, it would be a very uneconomical investment to build a railway across the desert just for an iron ore of more than one billion tons.

Many mining areas in uninhabited areas are now researching airship transportation.

In the past, the development of minerals in uninhabited areas posed a very troublesome problem in infrastructure construction. Not only was the construction cost high, but we also had to consider the ecological environment of the areas through which roads and railways passed, and the maintenance cost was also very high.

It is different now. Not only can the ore produced in the mining area in the uninhabited area be transported out by airship, but all kinds of equipment, daily necessities and personnel can also be transported in by airship. There is no need to build roads and railways at all.

If you are considering power generation, you can also rent the photovoltaic airship from Minqin Group.

Recently, Minqin Group launched a photovoltaic airship rental business, which is specially prepared for these uninhabited mining sites.

After all, if we rely solely on diesel generators or small photovoltaic power stations, sometimes we cannot fully meet the electricity needs of the mining area.

However, mining operations have their own particularities, such as timeliness. Mineral mining will eventually stop due to resource depletion, and a large amount of infrastructure built at this time will face abandonment.

Therefore, after research, Minqin Group launched rental services for transport airships, photovoltaic airships, communication airships, special residential buildings, and special factory buildings.

At present, many domestic companies have come to consult about this kind of cooperation.

This is also the task of Fei Hao and others. They need to build a model mining area and set an example for other mining companies with ideas, so that it will be more convincing.

After listening to part of Fei Hao’s description, Shi Tiansheng showed a hint of enlightenment on his face: “…Is that so? You want to build a model mining area? No problem, I can cooperate with you.”

Fei Hao smiled and nodded: “Thank you for your support, Director Shi. We are in Hejiajing Town recently. We will determine the location tomorrow, and the engineering team will come over in a few days to do some preparatory work.”

“You’re welcome. We’re all family.” Shi Tiansheng picked up the teacup and took a sip to moisten his throat.

(End of this chapter)