After Yang Jing and Gege arrived, David Patel, the head of the private polar scientific research organization, and Andrei Miladinov, the captain of the Blue Whale, immediately appeared at the port and met with Yang Jing, the big money sponsor.
In developed capitalist countries in the West, there are many private polar scientific research organizations like Ingram. The situation in these developed capitalist countries is different from that in China. In China, scientific research activities in the Antarctic and the Arctic are often carried out by the state. But in these developed countries, most scientific research activities are private. These private scientific research organizations make profits by accepting commissions from government departments, major universities and even other private organizations. Of course, while completing the commissions of others, they can also carry out their own scientific research tasks and sell some results to some interested people or organizations.
In the last century, polar scientific research was still a very unpopular industry, and the competition was not that fierce. But as people pay more and more attention to the two poles, the competition in this industry is getting more and more fierce. Especially after entering the new century, many private polar scientific research organizations have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, which has made the competition in this industry enter an extremely cruel state.
Just like Ingram, it is a private polar scientific research organization based in North America. Its main service objects are major universities and relevant government departments in North America. But unfortunately, this private polar scientific research organization with a history of more than 20 years has become increasingly competitive as more and more young people have entered this industry with large amounts of money.
To this end, Ingram's partners spent $140 million more than ten years ago to build the Graham Blue Whale, trying to get out of the predicament by relying on this most advanced polar research vessel at the time.
When the Blue Whale was launched, it caused quite a stir in the industry, and Ingram received many orders for the advanced Blue Whale. Unfortunately, whether polar scientific research can produce results depends not only on advanced polar research ships, but also on the ability of scientific researchers.
Obviously, in this regard, Ingram is no better than other top polar scientific research organizations. On the contrary, they are at a disadvantage in some aspects.
In this way, although Ingram added an extremely advanced Blue Whale, the actual business did not increase much, and the huge maintenance funds of the Blue Whale made Ingram more and more difficult. If the major shareholder behind Ingram was not a wealthy man who could still hold on, this well-known polar scientific research organization might have completely disbanded.
Last winter, Ingram received a commission from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct a detailed survey of the distribution of several minerals in Antarctica. The Department of Energy only provided a budget of $3.58 million for this mission, but the mission would last for four months, almost spanning the entire warm season in Antarctica.
The task was not complicated, but the time span was so long and the money was so little. The best thing Ingram could do by taking this order was to ensure that he would not lose money. But even so, Ingram had no choice but to take this order.
There’s no way. If you don’t take it, there are people queuing up behind you to take this order.
Fortunately, before embarking on this mission, Ingram received another commission, which was to deliver a batch of supplies to the US polar research station Michael Odor Station located on the coast of the Ross Ice Shelf.
This extra mission made the trip to Antarctica somewhat profitable, but man proposes, and just when the Blue Whale had just delivered supplies to the Michael Odo Station and was about to begin a mineral resource survey, it unfortunately encountered a sudden cold wave.
The strong cold current caused the sea ice of the Ross Ice Shelf to expand and thicken rapidly, and eventually trapped the Blue Whale in the Ross Ice Shelf, unable to move forward or backward. The most serious thing was that when the Blue Whale tried to break the ice and leave the Ross Sea, the starboard hull was damaged. Although the hull was not broken, the plan to break the ice again was completely ruined.
Not only that, the Blue Whale, trapped in the Ross Ice Shelf, had to send out a distress signal, and an Antarctic research vessel from Germany finally rescued the Blue Whale after twelve days.
Although rescued, the Blue Whale was stranded in the Ross Sea for more than 20 days, and the hull was damaged and needed to be repaired. Now it could not even complete the task assigned by the US Department of Energy.
There was no other way. After obtaining the consent of the U.S. Department of Energy, Ingram had to hand over the task to another polar research ship from the United States. Then the Blue Whale towed the damaged hull back to Boston at a very slow speed.
This trip to Antarctica not only failed to complete the mission entrusted by the U.S. Department of Energy, but also caused damage to the hull of the Blue Whale. Of course, the Germans did not save you in vain. In order to rescue the Blue Whale from the Ross Ice Shelf, Ingram paid the Germans a reward of up to 1.45 million US dollars; as for not completing the commission of the Department of Energy, Ingram also needs to pay the Department of Energy a penalty of up to 800,000 US dollars...
It can be said that last year's trip to Antarctica was a disaster. To use an old Chinese saying, it was a disaster of both losing the wife and the army!
Ingram, who had originally expected to make some money, actually lost more than 4 million U.S. dollars on that trip to Antarctica. Taking into account the cost of repairing the ship later, Ingram lost a total of nearly 5 million U.S. dollars.
This is undoubtedly a further blow to Ingram, who is already struggling.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
