173: Chapter 173 The Russian Bear Country's estimated procurement funds are 100 billion US dollars.

Major General Zaha quickly informed Vyacheslav of the time the arms dealer would transport the oil and gas, as well as their willingness to sell weapons and equipment, advising Russia to contact the arms dealer directly to negotiate the procurement.

Upon receiving the news, Lieutenant General Sergei immediately contacted Li Yi.

"I am Lieutenant General Sergei, the head of weapons and equipment procurement for the Russian military. You have weapons and equipment for sale, correct?" Lieutenant General Sergei stated his purpose clearly from the start.

"Yes, we can sell weapons and equipment to you." Hearing that it was the Russian military, Li Yi knew they wanted to purchase arms.

"Can you come to Russia to negotiate the arms deal?" Lieutenant General Sergei asked.

"No, I am currently in Beirut. If you want to procure weapons and equipment, come to Beirut to negotiate," Li Yi said; he had no intention of going to Russia for negotiations.

"Very well. When can we negotiate?" Lieutenant General Sergei considered it for a moment and finally had to agree.

"The day after tomorrow at 3:00 PM." Li Yi gave the time and location to Lieutenant General Sergei. He still had to collect oil and gas every night, so the day after tomorrow was just right.

"I heard you can accept oil and gas as payment for procurement funds, is that true?" Lieutenant General Sergei inquired.

"Yes, we can accept not only energy resources like oil, natural gas, and coal, but also mineral resources like iron ore and copper ore as payment for weapons and equipment," Li Yi said.

Lieutenant General Sergei was instantly excited to hear that energy and mineral resources could be used as payment. After all, Russia lacked many things, but energy and minerals were not among them. He said, "Good, we understand. We will discuss the details then."

Lieutenant General Sergei needed to immediately determine the availability of energy and mineral resources for procurement, hoping to secure more funds to buy more weapons and equipment for the ongoing war.

After communicating with various factions and departments, Lieutenant General Sergei finally finalized a preliminary list of energy resources for procurement, including 1.2 billion barrels of oil, 80 billion cubic meters of natural gas, and 100 million tons of coal.

Russia's oil production was 3.915 billion barrels. 600 million barrels had already been leased to Syria, 1.35 billion barrels were for export, and domestic daily consumption was 3.2 million barrels, totaling an estimated 1.2 billion barrels domestically. This left 765 million barrels of oil available for arms procurement.

While 765 million barrels seemed like a lot, it was still insufficient for the desired procurement. Finally, they decided to tap into a strategic petroleum reserve, increasing the oil allocated for arms to 1.2 billion barrels.

Current natural gas production reached 761 billion cubic meters. After accounting for the 150 billion cubic meters leased to Syria, subtracting exports, and compressing the 491 billion cubic meters of domestic consumption, they could draw out 80 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

Coal production was 440 million tons, with 210 million tons available for export. It was finally decided that 100 million tons of coal would be used for arms procurement.

Initially, Russia also planned to use copper ore, aluminum ore, and palladium as payment, but considering that domestic production wasn't particularly high and consumption was significant—and since this was their first transaction with this arms dealer—they ultimately decided against using mineral resources for payment.

According to Lieutenant General Sergei's estimates, even if this oil, gas, and coal weren't sold at international prices, the total value exceeded 100 billion USD, which could buy a vast amount of weapons and equipment.

He just didn't know if the arms dealer could provide that much. If they couldn't, the procurement funds would have to be reduced. If they could, any excess would have to wait for the next procurement cycle.

Once the list of energy resources was finalized, Lieutenant General Sergei immediately prepared to fly to Beirut. As for what specific weapons he could buy, he would have to decide based on the situation.

Some in the Russian military advised Lieutenant General Sergei that he didn't need to go in person, but considering the massive scale of the funds and the number of decisions required, he decided to go personally to ensure nothing went wrong.

On the other side, after learning from Major General Zaha that he could collect oil and gas from Russia, Li Yi waited quietly. When the time came, Li Yi teleported directly to Omsk via the Multiverse Arms Trading System.

Li Yi had been to Omsk before. He sequentially collected 100,000,711 barrels of oil and 1,000,010,027 cubic meters of natural gas from four storage facilities in Omsk.

Subsequently, Li Yi teleported to Oryol via the Multiverse Arms Trading System and collected 1,000,008,014 cubic meters of natural gas from two storage facilities. After finishing, Li Yi returned to the Beirut Riviera Hotel via the system.

Currently, the Multiverse Arms Trading System only stored 100,000,711 barrels of oil and 2,000,018,041 cubic meters of natural gas; all other oil and gas had already been converted into system funds.

Early the next morning, Li Yi suddenly received a call from Mannila.

"Mannila, have you found a new client?" Li Yi asked, assuming Mannila was calling about a new procurement lead.

"No. I heard the Libyan National Army has already paid in oil and gas. I was wondering when you'll transfer the commission to me?" Mannila clarified. He was there to collect his debt, as the client he introduced, the Libyan National Army, had already paid for their goods.

Li Yi then remembered he hadn't paid Mannila's commission yet and said, "I'll transfer it to you immediately. You can check your account in a bit."

Hearing this, Mannila stopped pressing him; he had to give Li Yi time to make the transfer, after all.

Li Yi agreed he should indeed pay the commission, so he transferred the previously agreed-upon 81.44 million USD to Mannila via Swiss Bank.

After the transfer, Li Yi's Chaos Company account at the Swiss Bank only had 27.66 million USD left, which wasn't much. Fortunately, there were no more commissions to pay, or Li Yi wouldn't have had the funds.

Once Lieutenant General Sergei arrived in Beirut, he communicated the negotiation time with Li Yi again. After some discussion, they decided to move it up to 10:00 AM.