Material Empire

Marmont Industries, located in Lyon, France, is a company specializing in the production of advanced industrial film materials. The film products they produce cover various fields such as aviation, automobiles, home appliances, and microelectronics. In the past, the raw materials used by Marmon to manufacture industrial films came from local European chemical material companies, but recently, a new type of material that appeared in the East began to make the company's executives scratch their heads and fidget.

"Nicole, have you asked clearly whether the Chinese can provide us with enough graphene? I don't want to stop production due to the limitation of raw materials after our product is developed." Solem, the company's president, said in his In the office, Nicole, the purchasing manager, asked anxiously.

"I've asked many times..." said Nicole timidly, "and they've reassured me that...that's enough."

"What do you mean enough!" Solem said angrily, "It is rumored that the daily output of graphene from China's Daqin Group is only 5 kilograms, and our Marmon Company alone is expected to use at least 10 kilograms per day. Even if they All the production capacity is used to supply us, and it is not enough, haven't you confirmed this with them?"

Nicole said: "I asked, and the sales department of Daqin Group said that the statement of daily output of 5 kilograms is not accurate, and their output will be more than this figure. However, as for their real production capacity, they Refusing to disclose... By the way, they said they would send someone to communicate with us."

"What do you mean?" Solem asked in surprise.

"What they mean is that they have the ability to expand production capacity, but they will only do so after signing a stable supply contract with us. Also, it is not enough for one of our companies to order from them, they need to cooperate with more The company has contacted it before deciding whether to expand production capacity. To get such a guarantee, they need to negotiate with us face to face." Nicole said with a helpless attitude.

Given the prominent status of Marmont, it is really annoying to be pushed around when trying to purchase some raw materials from a Chinese company. But the rules in the market are like this. The company with tight resources is the uncle. Marmon also plays big names in front of its customers, but now it's just a switch of offense and defense.

After Annhe School of Materials announced the discovery of graphene and its preparation process, Marmont was also invited to send a technical team to Hongze to study this emerging material and see if it can be applied to its own products. Initially, the company sent an ordinary technical manager with two average assistants. After the technical manager arrived in Hongze, he made a preliminary analysis of the graphene samples provided by the School of Materials, and immediately reported to the company, claiming that this material has epoch-making significance, and the company must pay special attention to it.

Solem got the news and immediately sent CTO Florian to China with several technical backbones. There, Florian met many familiar colleagues. These people are technical authorities in some well-known companies in the world, and some companies' products even compete with Marmon.

Ann River College of Materials has opened the testing laboratory to all technical teams, and also sent some teachers and students who participated in graphene research to cooperate with these technical teams. Florian got a lot of inspiration from the experts of the School of Materials, and quickly discovered the application prospects of this new material in Marmon's product series. He has to admit that this new material is indeed infinitely attractive. If Marmon misses the development and application of this material, it will be at a disadvantage in the market in the future.

Qin Hai's open test is indeed vicious enough. It takes several years for general new materials to be widely used. This time is the running-in period for various downstream companies, and also provides a buffer period for material manufacturers to form and expand production capacity. But this time, as soon as Qin Hai released the material, a competition for the application of the material was immediately set off. All the big companies have come to Hongze, forming a kind of competitive pressure among each other invisibly, making every company feel that the time is running out.

After completing part of the testing work, Florian returned to France with dozens of grams of samples purchased from Daqin Group, and then began to develop various new products. He and his team have successively developed graphene-based industrial sealing films, display coatings, aviation anti-corrosion films, etc. These products have good market prospects and can bring Marmon's business to a new level.

Now, the development of various products has come to an end, just waiting for enough raw materials to carry out small test, pilot test, and then enter formal production. But a problem arose. According to market expectations, Marmon needs about 10 kilograms of graphene raw materials per day to ensure the supply of products, but Daqin Group has never clearly stated how much graphene it can provide to Marmon. .

"Is there any news from Warren's company?" Solem asked Nicole.

Warren Company is a famous chemical material company in Germany and one of the main raw material suppliers of Marmont. In terms of scale, Warren Company can be equivalent to dozens of Daqin Groups, and its technical strength is beyond the reach of Daqin Groups. Solem believes that if Warren can produce graphene, then the production capacity problem is not worth worrying about at all. Such an established enterprise can easily expand its production capacity to ten times or a hundred times.

What Solem can think of, of course Nicole can think of it too. However, Nicole could only smile wryly and shook his head when asked by Solem, "I asked, and the Warren Company said that they have also paid attention to the market prospects of graphene, and invested a lot of manpower and material resources The development of the preparation process has been carried out, but so far there has been no major breakthrough. According to their estimates, it will take two years at the earliest to develop a new preparation process and form sufficient production capacity."

"Haven't the Chinese already introduced two preparation processes? Why don't they buy process patents from the Chinese?" Solem blurted out.

Nicole said: "I heard that the patent licensing fee offered by the Chinese is very high, which will completely lose the competitiveness of Warren's products, so they would rather develop a new preparation process by themselves."

"It's not because of licensing fees, but Warren's unwillingness to pay patent fees to a Chinese company they've never heard of. They have their pride." Solem explained the secret.

There is nothing wrong with Solem's speculation about Warren's company, but he didn't know that it's not that Warren's company has never heard of Daqin Group, but that it has stumbled in front of Daqin Group before, and it can be regarded as a settlement. Enmity, so hold your breath, must come up with their own craft. As far as this enmity is concerned, it was a few years ago. When dealing with the French beach oil spill, the water purification filter membrane developed by Daqin Group defeated the similar products of Warren Company, which made Warren Company lose face. Since then, Warren Company has listed Daqin Group as an important potential competitor.

With the technical level of the modern chemical industry, after understanding the basic properties of graphene, it is not difficult to develop a new preparation process, it just takes some time. Warren Company is a well-established chemical company, and has strong technical strength in this area, which can completely solve the problem of graphene preparation. But the problem is that the application of graphene is developing too fast, and there is no time left for Warren to develop the process. Like Marmon, the product has already been developed, and it is just waiting for the graphene raw material to be put into the pot. Warren's graphene preparation process is still in the stage of proof of concept. How can it be too late?

"At present, apart from the Chinese, the only thing we can count on is Japan's Xinzuka Chemical Industry." Nicole said, "The sales director of Xinzuka Chemical Industry, Morioka Yoshiki, contacted me and said that they can sell products in three months. Then provide us with sufficient graphene raw materials, and the price is more than 30% cheaper than the Chinese."

"Nizuka Chemical, well, it seems that we can only trust the Japanese's ability." Solem said, "Although their technology is not as good as Warren's, their effort is much stronger than those lazy Germans. "

Nicole said: "I also have some confidence in Xinzuka Chemical, but they say that their products will be cheaper than the Chinese, I can't believe it. I consulted Mr. Florian, and he said that the Daqin Group currently owns The production process of chemical vapor deposition is the lowest cost graphene production process in theory. If the production capacity of Daqin Group is not only 5 kg per day as they said, but can reach more, then their price will definitely be higher than it is now It is much lower. The new technology developed by the Japanese in a hurry may be difficult to compete with them."

Solem laughed: "This is not something we need to care about. It is very beneficial for us to have the Japanese compete with the Chinese. I think we need to send a clear message to the Chinese, tell The market demand for their graphene is very large, which induces them to expand their production capacity and compete with the Japanese. In this way, the price of graphene can be greatly reduced, which is good for our products to enter the market .”

"I understand, that's exactly what I did." Nicole nodded.

The two were chatting when the secretary of the office came in and said to Nicole: "Mr. Nicole, three Chinese people came outside and said they had an appointment with you. By the way, they said they came to talk about Shi Mo The supply problem of ethylene."

"Oh, the Chinese are finally here!" Nicole's eyes lit up, "Quickly invite them to the negotiation room!"