398: Chapter 398 Global Announcement, Trillions Evaporated

He waited, barefoot on the beach, the sand beneath his feet still retaining the lingering warmth of the day.

In the distance, the flag of the Federation of Myanmar atop the lighthouse fluttered almost imperceptibly in the night breeze, like a war drum with its volume turned down.

09:00 Naypyidaw time, Press Conference Hall of the Presidential Palace of the Federation of Myanmar.

The cameras of seventeen major global news agencies lit up red simultaneously.

The press hall was newly built, with walls made of locally sourced Burmese white jade marble and floors paved with teak from Kachin State, but none of the reporters had the heart to admire the decor—their lenses were all aimed at the twelve-meter-wide holographic projection screen behind the podium.

There were only two lines of text on the screen, in both Chinese and English:

"Joint Announcement on the Kyaukpyu-Mozambique Pacific-Indian Ocean Energy Corridor, Government of the Republic of the Federation of Myanmar · State Council of the Dragon Kingdom"

Li Lanzhi stood in the translation booth to the left of the podium, watching the dense crowd of cameras in the press hall through the soundproof glass.

Zhang Cheng's voice came through her earpiece—he was monitoring the press conference in real-time via an encrypted channel from the presidential office upstairs, but would not be attending in person.

This occasion did not require his presence. The joint announcement was read by Wu Suowen, Minister of Energy of the Federation of Myanmar, and Sun Jianhua, Deputy Director of the Dragon Kingdom's NDRC, with the ambassadors of both countries seated in the front row.

The diplomatic protocol was fully observed, and the political weight would be measured by the cameras themselves.

Wu Suowen walked to the podium. He was a veteran who had been involved in industrial management since the Dawn Base era, later personally appointed by Zhang Cheng as the first Minister of Energy, building the Federation of Myanmar's oil and gas development system and rare earth export control framework from scratch within a year.

His English had a Burmese accent, but every word was enunciated with extreme precision.

"The Government of the Federation of Myanmar and the State Council of the Dragon Kingdom jointly announce the official launch of the 'Kyaukpyu-Mozambique Pacific-Indian Ocean Energy Corridor' project.

The core content of the project includes: First, the construction of a deep-sea natural gas liquefaction production base with an annual output of 12 million tons in Block 4 of the Rovuma Basin in the northern Cabo Delgado Province of Mozambique;

Second, the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal and supporting gas storage facilities with an annual receiving capacity of 15 million tons at Kyaukpyu Port in Myanmar;

Third, the construction of a dual natural gas pipeline from Kyaukpyu to Southern Yunnan in the Dragon Kingdom, with a designed annual transmission capacity of 60 billion cubic meters;

Fourth, all maritime routes will reach Kyaukpyu Port via the Mozambique Channel, the Indian Ocean, and the Andaman Sea. Once the Kra Canal is operational in the future, secondary transshipment can reach the Pacific Ocean directly through the canal—"

Before he had finished reading the fourth point, reporters in the back of the press hall were already frantically typing on their keyboards.

The energy sector editor at Bloomberg shouted "Natural gas futures" into his headset to his colleagues far away in New York. A Reuters reporter used his phone to photograph the first page of the document in Sun Jianhua's hand and sent it back to the news agency. An Associated Press text reporter typed a headline in all caps on his laptop: "Myanmar-Dragon Kingdom Announce Energy Corridor Plan, Malacca Bypassed."

By the time Sun Jianhua took the microphone to add technical details, global financial markets were already trembling violently.

Singapore, OCBC Bank Energy Futures Trading Department. The price curve of natural gas futures contracts plummeted by 6.3% within forty-two seconds of the announcement, triggering an automatic circuit breaker.

Traders stared at the green candlestick chart crashing straight down on their screens. Some cursed, while others slammed their phone handsets onto their desks—they had just heavily invested in call options an hour ago, betting that winter demand in the Northern Hemisphere would drive up spot prices.

This joint announcement turned their positions into waste paper in an instant.

New York, New York Mercantile Exchange. The main Henry Hub natural gas futures contract plummeted by 8.7% within three minutes, with trading volume exploding to an eighteen-month single-minute peak.

Quantitative hedge fund algorithmic trading programs triggered sell orders within the same millisecond, and 700,000 short positions crashed into the market like an avalanche.

In the trading hall, some people screamed, while others slumped in their chairs, heads in their hands, unable to even refresh the quote numbers on their trading terminal screens—the prices were falling faster than the display latency.

When Wall Street opened, the energy sector was a bloodbath. Exxon Mobil opened down 9%, Chevron down 11%, ConocoPhillips down 8%, and shale gas giant Chesapeake Energy immediately triggered the $0.20 delisting warning line.

The energy sector as a whole saw $110 billion in market value evaporate—nearly 800 billion RMB, wiping out the entire annual GDP of a medium-sized country.

On the split screen of CNN Business, the left side showed the red curve of the plunging Nasdaq Energy Index, while the right side showed the live broadcast of Wu Suowen continuing to read the document in the press hall of the Myanmar Presidential Palace.

The scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen read: "Analysts: If the energy corridor is completed, the Middle East-Malacca route will lose more than one-third of its natural gas traffic."

In the presidential office, Zhang Cheng watched all of this simultaneously across three screens.

The left screen displayed real-time global financial market data, the middle screen showed the live press conference, and the right screen displayed a satellite nautical chart of the Mozambique Channel—on the chart was a newly drawn red route, starting from the coast of Cabo Delgado Province, passing through the northern entrance of the Mozambique Channel, crossing diagonally across the entire Indian Ocean, and finally reaching Kyaukpyu Port.

Next to the route was the mileage: 4,200 nautical miles. Compared with the traditional route via Malacca to the southern coast of the Dragon Kingdom, the distance saved was not just a few hundred nautical miles—it was strategic autonomy.

Li Lanzhi pushed open the office door and walked in, holding a freshly printed English document.

"A draft statement from the White House. Our network monitoring intercepted their internal emails—the wording is still being revised, but the core is set."

Zhang Cheng took the document and scanned it.

"Citing the 'East Africa Energy Security Act'... imposing a comprehensive technology embargo on Myanmar... any foreign company participating in the Mozambique natural gas project will be added to the Specially Designated Nationals list and lose access to the US market... threatening third countries not to provide financial services and insurance..."

"They wrote 'comprehensive technology embargo' in their emails, but they don't dare to ban the chips." Zhang Cheng placed the document on the table. "Dawn Base's MX-1 chips have already been embedded in the communication base stations and education systems of twenty-one countries around the world. Banning the chips is equivalent to banning the infrastructure of those countries—they would revolt first."

"What about the EU and Japan?"

"Japan has already knelt once; it won't be hard for them to kneel again. The EU—" Zhang Cheng tapped his fingers on the keyboard twice and pulled up an intercepted text of an internal European Commission memorandum. "Look at this. The EU Trade Commissioner wrote in the memo: If they vote in favor of the US proposal, energy giants like France's Total, Shell, and Eni will face the same risk of 'proxy infiltration' in all their gas projects in Africa. In other words, what they fear isn't the sanctions—they fear that we will use the same method to plant our flag on their remaining African assets."

Li Lanzhi sat down opposite him and opened her notebook. "Regarding Mozambique—our liaison office in Maputo just sent back news: President Nyusi's cabinet held a closed-door meeting this morning. The Minister of Foreign Affairs advocates accepting our technical cooperation plan because Dawn Base chips are already connected to 40% of public school e-classrooms nationwide in Mozambique, and they cannot afford the replacement costs. But the Minister of Defense opposes it—he says military intelligence shows that the CIA has already delivered money and weapons to Jial, and if the government openly leans toward Myanmar, a full-scale armed conflict will immediately erupt in Cabo Delgado Province."