How I Struck Oil in South America (2)
"...Three times as much?"
I couldn't believe my own ears.
"While transferring the prisoners, Director Lucio subjected them to intensive interrogation. Their statements put the reserves in the Northern Oil Fields at a minimum of 1.8 billion barrels — and a maximum of 2.6 billion."
"Two point six billion barrels..."
My jaw went slack. At 2.6 billion barrels, even a back-of-the-envelope calculation put the value well north of a hundred billion dollars. That was giant-field territory. No exaggeration required.
"Don't tell me they lowballed the reserves and staged a terror campaign just so they could swallow the whole thing?"
"Originally they meant to understate the reserves and snap up the development rights for a song. Then Your Excellency got in their way. That, we believe, is when they decided to topple the previous government outright."
"Unbelievable..."
I was too stunned to find anything else to say.
"And that is not the end of it."
Isabella's eyes glittered as she pressed on.
"Cevron had already commissioned a marine plant so they could begin drilling at a moment's notice."
"A plant? Already?"
"Yes. A drillship and platform, more than sixty percent complete, are sitting in a shipyard near Houston."
My fists clenched. Under ordinary circumstances, ordering a custom offshore plant and getting it installed took two years at the absolute minimum.
And they already had one sitting there, half-built?
So we wouldn't have to wait until the end of next year. We could be pulling oil out of the ground by early next year — maybe sooner.
In a resource play where time was money, buying a full year was an enormous windfall.
It also sent a chill straight down my spine.
"...How many people know about this?"
"Inside Cevron, no one. The five executives we captured and the team that ran the local survey were the only ones who knew, and..."
Isabella paused.
"They staged an accident and drowned every last one of them."
"......"
I had nothing.
"They're completely insane."
They had murdered their own people to keep a secret.
What are they, demons...?
Leaving them to rot in prison for the rest of their lives was starting to feel like an act of mercy.
"In any case, we have them, and the oil field is ours. Congratulations, Your Excellency."
Isabella was genuinely delighted. I couldn't quite share the smile.
2.6 billion barrels is too big.
Too much of a good thing, wasn't that the saying? An oil field was a vast underground pool. Even if I planted a straw in my own ground and started sucking, someone on the other side could plant a bigger straw and drain my share right out from under me.
And sitting directly above that field was the most powerful nation on earth — and the world's hungriest consumer of oil.
What if the American majors caught wind of this and decided they wanted a piece?
We couldn't stop them. Not with our strength.
Which left only one play. Eat the whole thing ourselves, before anyone else could pull up a chair.
"Chief of Staff."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"Get in touch with Director Ellen and tell him to rush the drilling. We need to pull as much as we can, as fast as we can, before word gets out."
Isabella's eyes narrowed.
"You mean to drain it dry before anyone else catches on."
"Exactly. The faster we lift it, the less there is to fight over."
"Understood. I'll move on it at once."
She answered with a crisp salute of the voice and strode out of the office.
The moment Eugene made up his mind, the San Marcos administration began to move with a speed that bordered on wartime mobilization.
Isabella hounded Director Ellen day and night.
"Understood. I'll push this as hard as I can."
Already carrying a debt of gratitude, Ellen folded under her relentless pressure and made sure Cevron put San Marcos's field at the front of the queue.
Meanwhile, Eugene put in a call to Chairman Jung Soo-man of the Hyeonhwa Group. Before a single barrel could come out of the ground, storage facilities were the first and most urgent necessity.
"I'd like you to accelerate construction on the Northern Oil Fields pipelines and storage as much as possible."
Chairman Chung must have heard the urgency in his voice. He laughed, a deep, easy rumble.
"Huh-huh. Something's come up, I take it."
"I'll explain the details later—"
"No need. If Your Excellency says it's urgent, then it's urgent."
He accepted without a single question.
"The foundation work is already finished, and the materials and equipment are all on site. All that's left is to put people on a plane. I'll run three shifts if I have to and have it done in three months. Leave it to this old man."
"Thank you, Chairman."
The sheer generosity of it lifted a weight off Eugene's chest. While he had the man on the line, he decided to push his luck one step further.
"Is there... any way to start extracting crude before the offshore plant is installed?"
Even if Cevron's drillship arrived, hooking it up and bringing it online would still take months. Eugene begrudged even that.
"Have you heard of an FPSO?"
"An FPSO?"
"Think of it as a ship that does the work of an offshore plant. It looks like a vessel, but drop a straw in the water and it will lift crude, run a basic refinement, and store the product right there on board."
Pride warmed the old man's voice.
"Our latest model out of Hyeonhwa Heavy Industries can pull two hundred thousand barrels a day without breaking a sweat."
"Two hundred thousand... barrels?"
Eugene was privately stunned. That was output to rival a proper fixed offshore platform.
"As it happens, we have one whose order was cancelled. It was meant for a Brazilian oil company — they went bankrupt, and the ship was left without an owner."
"Could we use it?"
"Of course. If you want it, I can send it today. Crew included."
"What's the price?"
"List is 2.2 billion dollars. Call it inventory clearance and I'll let it go for two billion."
"Two... billion dollars?"
Eugene's voice died in his throat. Two billion dollars. In won, that was nearly three trillion.
They had brought in American loans, but those funds were locked to infrastructure. Tortilla Company's capital was already sunk into the mines and a dozen other ventures; there was no prying it loose on short notice.
"I'm sorry, but... we don't have the liquidity to authorize that kind of sum right now."
He was about to decline, regret thick in his voice, when Chairman Chung made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
"Pay me later."
"...Excuse me?"
"We'll do it on deferred payment. Sell the crude and pay me back at your leisure."
A pay-as-you-pump deal, in other words.
It wasn't even a stretch on his end. With oil prices where they were, a few years of production would cover the note easily. And if the bargain bought him goodwill with the leader of an entire country, so much the better. That was a trade that only ran one way.
"Just don't go forgetting Hyeonhwa later, all right? Huh-huh-huh."
Eugene did the math.
Bring in the offshore plant and the FPSO at the same time?
Four hundred thousand barrels a day. Double the pace they had originally planned. And on credit, no less. They did say that on credit, a man would eat an ox.
"Done. Send it at once."
Three months later, off the northern coast of San Marcos, two colossal beasts of steel rose from the sea in all their terrible grandeur.
One was the drillship Hyeonhwa had lent them. The other was the latest-model FPSO the San Marcos government had taken on deferred payment.
"Preparations complete."
The site director's voice came over the radio, taut with nerves.
Watching from a helicopter circling overhead, Isabella gave the order.
"Begin."
A deep, rolling thunder shuddered through the hull. The enormous drill lowered from the ship began to turn, boring down through the seafloor.
The target coordinates had already been locked in perfectly, courtesy of Cevron's cooperation. Failure was not a thought that crossed anyone's mind.
A short wait. Then—
"We have a strike! Drilling successful!"
The voice on the radio was shaking with excitement.
The black gold that would snap the yoke of poverty from San Marcos's neck had begun to pour.
"...We did it."
Isabella's eyes shone wet.
A year ago this would have been unimaginable. A country stained with poverty and narcotics, become an oil state.
And every inch of that miracle had been the work of one man.
Your Excellency... just what are you...?
She pressed a hand to her swelling chest and lifted the radio.
"Well done. I will report to the Presidential Palace immediately."
At the same hour, in the Presidential Palace office, Eugene set down the receiver with a taut expression. Isabella's report had just come through.
"It worked."
He let out a long breath of relief and turned to Lessa.
"Senior Secretary Lessa."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"Get me the broadcast network. I'm going to deliver an emergency address."
Eugene moved to the Presidential Palace briefing room and took his place before the cameras. He wanted the people to hear the news this instant — not a minute later.
Across San Marcos, regular programming cut out on every television and radio. The national anthem filled the air.
Until Caribbean waters and Mount Yunke
run dry and wear away—
may Deus protect our nation,
hurrah, hurrah!
The anthem Eugene had personally knocked off from Korea's own rolled out across the country, and citizens laid their hands over their hearts and listened in solemn quiet.
Then his voice came through every television and radio in the land.
My beloved people of San Marcos.
Today, I come before you with historic news.
Only moments ago, off our northern coast, San Marcos succeeded in its first oil strike.
This is the first step by which our nation throws off the yoke of poverty and walks forward as an independent economic power.
We are no longer a country that waits for someone else's help. We have become a country that can stand on its own strength — and leave our children a better future.
Every bit of this glory belongs to you, our great people, who never surrendered hope through all the suffering, and who endured in silence.
This government will spend these resources on you. We will teach the children. We will lay the roads. We will build the hospitals. We will raise a basic social safety net, so that every citizen may live with hope.
And so I ask you: trust me, and work hard.
In the market stalls of Libertad, in village diners, on construction sites, and in living rooms — every citizen stopped what they were doing and held their breath, hanging on the president's voice.
Eyes watching the screen went wide.
On the screen, Eugene looked into the camera as if meeting every citizen's gaze, his expression utterly sincere.
When the broadcast ended, a brief silence hung in the air. What broke it was someone's sob.
"O-oil? There's oil coming out of our ground?"
"Does that mean our kids won't have to go hungry anymore?"
"Didn't you hear what His Excellency just said? He's going to spend it on the people!"
A merchant in the market. A laborer on a job site. They looked at one another's faces.
And the astonishment became a roar.
"WAAAAAAAH!"
Cheers erupted from every street. It didn't matter that they were strangers. People threw their arms around each other, danced, and wept.
Old men who had spent their entire lives under the heel of poverty sank to the ground and wailed. The young clenched their fists and shouted at the sky.
On the land that had been a country of despair, hope was coming into bloom.
The great cry of a people rolled over Libertad and swallowed the city whole.
The people began to pour into the streets.