they want to shape the continent's future to. be part of the african youngsters as they share their stories their dreams and their challenges. to the seventy seven percent. platform for africa charge. wouldn't be fighting for the case to be taken seriously in the world of what appears has come out. this talk on. the digital super hero on a mission to chapters smart women smart talks smart strange alleging there's a fine known movement out on the brain creasing lean dangerous stuff. made from.

west africa is importing dirty fuels why. west africa is selling all feeds good crude oil why. i'm jealous with companies involved in this business. come on.

her for it's a big day for puma energy the oil company has acquired additional oil market shares in ghana and it's spreading the news. of. this is the. official representatives and several v.i.p.'s have accepted the invitation. this is a little. bit of. the media here as well. because it's

just what you're sure to get it's. so dark but i figure here i think. we're going to live you know so. the minister of transport is officially inaugurating several kerosene tanks delegated near the airport so this will make refueling more efficient it's a strategic move for ghana which aims to become the rising star in the region please please go visit my sister. meanwhile the p.r. visit is going ahead at full speed. the next stop this brand new filling station in puma energy commas who now owns forty one service stations in guyana that might not seem a lot but the company is very ambitious you're welcome to. the way to do it for your service. it should. mean fuel.

for it but it's a chance to come back fast but i feel that good ideas that show they have clear in your you go big go it would help if nobody was there but. what did he say. clean the facts may be but the fuel itself the sulfur level is the issue it's measured in p.p.m. parts per million countries decide their limits individually in europe it's ten ppm for diesel for example. it's been three thousand ppm this diesel fuel is so dirty that it's sale would be prohibited in much of the world to. what is the pima energy boss think about that. did you know that the standard in ghana is rather poor especially in terms of cell phones yes so you're aware of that absolutely this

is true for many african countries and even if you were to look at a very large market like south africa if the standards here are higher than elsewhere. in ghana the highest level allowed is three thousand people yeah that's a lot so yes that's a lot it poses a health problem so for the problem yes it poses a problem. to comply with national standards and improve the products we import if we can. make an effort. are they trying to do better as we said geo says that's not the case. this was petroleum traders have a deliberate strategy clay are exploiting the weaknesses of the standards that apply in africa and bringing high quality fuel to europe for its are trying very inferior very dirty products to africa in retarded for the that claim with a star. on it all that is perfectly legal so what's the. but yes it is perfectly

legal within the permissible limits and we think that it is unacceptable for swiss oil traders to benefit from weak regulation in africa to make profits at the expense of millions of people if you. do. that strategy the heart of the accusations the investigation by the ngo public eye focuses on swiss based crude oil traders like traffic gura whose african subsidiaries puma energy as well as whose partners in africa vivo energy and shell. traffic orders revenue is close to one hundred billion dollars a year its net income is reportedly two point six billion. an extreme heavyweight turns over one hundred sixty eight billion in sales but that's all we know its profits are confidential. switzerland plays a major part in this thirty five percent of worldwide oil trading takes place in the geneva area. so. it is hardly known

companies trading in oil are present at all levels. reducing the fuel and in a fairly recent phenomenon for the past five or six years swiss oil traders have been buying building petrol stations in africa. if you are. here right. there. in the course of his investigation visited petrol stations and took reference samples from the pumps in asia africa and countries. his analyses showed that the sulfur levels in more than three hundred times higher than in switzerland. he did the three year investigation on behalf of the swiss ngo public eye formerly called bet on declaration which is known for its critical stance on commodity trading. this time

the investigators infiltrated the secretive world of the oil traders. these. difficult. traders strategies rely on lack of transparency is companies are by nature extremely discreet and barely visible to the public except maybe through their petrol stations they are also active on to other names they are private companies that aren't listed on the stock exchange and the belong to their managers and managers are the main shareholders they're not accountable to small shareholders and not subject to securities exchange their only answerable to themselves. for weeks we question traffic by email they ignored our questions they even refused to talk to us on the phone and finally declined to be interviewed referring us instead to their website when it's clearly promotional content. six it also is our excellent services are based in our global network. we import the refined petroleum products that africa needs wherever

we work we maintain the highest possible standards. moving our responsibility for health safety the environment and the communities where we work is at the heart of all our processes and decisions it's what the job of multiple c.c.'s the peace through traffic or redefining trade in africa who defeated nicholas on a freak vito's response was look at. the toll and vivo energy both respects and comply with the regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. undergoing regulations it is not possible for be told to directly supply energy with petroleum products in a few energy is obliged to purchase products from a bulk distribution company and the products available from these companies comply with the local regulations.

so in short some very powerful swiss companies supply west africa with fuel that couldn't be sold back out and it's legal but how can that be. our investigation led us to the oil imports of amsterdam and rotterdam where we soon realized how hard it is to penetrate the world of oil. it's a meaningful way to go and. live in west africa we chose to focus on ghana a country where the swiss companies are involved in both the production and distribution of oil. there are other companies out

there on the next. since the swiss companies themselves for a few. used to answer us we were pleased to get an interview with the representative of foreign importers in. canadian law stipulates that foreign oil importers must have local representation these local companies are grouped in an umbrella organization whose president is sinew who see he immediately confirms that some swiss trading companies are indeed present in ghana but they have hidden. from the call the of the huge volumes into ghana all right we are very dependent on the services and i have to see there being significantly professional glencore to hear you are british petroleum also here if they are investing in ghana it means that it's good business as. it goes business so that

influence has been very very very positive traffic guru i think some ten years ago made about a fifty million dollars investment in their facility that enabled us to get vessels in scene and get the drugs onshore through some pipelines and. this is a fine example of the swiss presence these morning platforms and. the main deepwater seaports capital traffic gura built them in two thousand and six. millions of century human energy can manage them. this infrastructure allows large vessels drawing more than ten metres to one load their oil product without having to talk. very critical for gone above and that would have happened just stream to making products available so that has been constructive i mean for. the company had

a ten year contract with ghana each invested in and maintained. the facilities using the mainly for its own oil tankers and levying a tax on competitor to platforms reverted to the canadian government in august twenty sixth teen so everyone is getting a slice of the pie but that doesn't solve the problem of low quality fuel imports there we seem to have touched a sore spot. one of the worst there is that the lowest. in the world is not the worst one the it's not the worst it's not the worst stand out the housing p.p.m. i see you're right ok wow it was very bad it's not a great. it's not great through the other p.p.m. is not great and we all agree it's not great it's a discussion that we have hard last year and he said discussion that we think should translate to reaction in the coming. in the meantime

keep on coughing the sulfur dioxide from exhaust fumes is everywhere it's direct influence on our small risk their entry infections and even cardiovascular diseases has been known for a long time recently the w.h.o. has confirmed and link between sulphur dioxide levels and lung cancer. why did gonna continue to stick to the three thousand ppm standard for diesel i would like to talk to judith's please she's dead as it stands up executive director talk of is it possible thank you. we're trying to get an answer from the canadian authorities. as if you do. know that she's not here and is a doctor have been able to talk to him. he's busy

she gets has already all the details so we sent it needs to print the letter and we just need to reach the director out please so this is quite it thank you for your help. it's complicated so we try a new tack each week you. believe. that if you believe in the belief that it is a. human energy to traffic or a subsidiary is holding an opening ceremony in one of the fanciest hotels in accra . the program says several high ranking officials are attending and it's true the oil minister himself is here in good company.

and this is a very. thank you thank you. thank. goodness just as the minister is leaving we try to get an interview. with you. he said. ok.

you day coming. out and. i have. something. in. your. code. number of. things so. we had hoped to get an in-depth interview in a quiet place to hear his arguments about the quality of fuel at the pumps and the potential responsibility of swiss companies in the sale of dirty products in his country but this was often asked at last meeting. the public eye report reveals that it all fits into

a very well thought out business model. her believe it was serious petroleum traders supply and sell petroleum products in africa but they also manufactured in a process known as blending. various fuel qualities are mixed. as it's a basic idea of this commercial strategy is to reproduce african fuel quality by deliberately lowering it to get as close as possible to the legal limits in africa . what did he say about the fuel quality. by deliberately lowering it to get as close as possible to the legal limits in africa. it. has an explanation refining crude oil resembles the process of distillation the product is heated and depending on the temperature various components from the cleanest to the. first

petroleum gas for butane bottle for instance gasoline for cars and nothing the size in plastic next in line is kerosene ferric claims followed by diesel the other main fuel for cars and trucks next come domestic heating fuel for generators and basically oil and finally the heavy fuels full of sulfur. oil trading companies buy these heavy fuels at low prices then just like an extension recipe they add components that are less to create the highest possible quantity of fuel at the lowest possible price a fuel type just on the legal limit in other words a very low so called africa. there are so many. question. we went to look for answers in the oil hub known as the are

a region that is in amsterdam rotterdam and. is the blending in the girl from store for a subset of blending itself is legal. what's illegal is mixing waste into the products to ward off a waste must be properly disposed of and not mixed into other substances makes it on the list of. plans to mark or is a prosecutor in rotterdam she's a member of the undone chain team of experts a dutch project that brings together justice and police departments to fight against environmental wrongdoing they focus mainly on fuel is used in the shipping industry which are highly polluting but the principle is always the same petroleum products must comply with the registration protocol before being sold in europe it's called reach it forces traders to register their products in

a database to obtain the equivalent of an identity card. the problem is that this procedure is so complex that nobody has really mastered it some companies take advantage of this is a fact not lost on the lawyer. has another perspective from the home tab for us from the point of view of criminal lawyers reach is a challenge. it's not only legally but also chemically complex complex can we talk about. we suspect some companies are using the reach directive to turn waste into products reach under how to hold off the event hey i think so but i hope it's only an assumption. that we believe they're exploiting it they're misusing it to circumvent the laws on the disposal of waste products meet all of the stuff of us having article. and well today jeanne. this is how they doubled their profits. if the waste isn't disposed

of by an approved disposal company which cost money cost at all but is instead mixed into other products it disappears in that cuts costs that's that's the first point just today and today is secondly they also earn money because the resulting fuel volume is greater stay at the waist and sell it as a product so they benefit twice and they sort of strike against. in almost all station says we're looking for illegal profits as part of an investigation into reach which will allow us to confiscate them here with a lot of luck another question has been bothering us for a long time is it possible to produce a petroleum product that is forbidden to be sold in the country and then to export it in another country when it's not probably there is it possible to do that it's legal. yeah look yes it is possible for example to produce a product in the netherlands that contains too much of something that can't be used

here but which can be sold in asia or africa of africa. there's no ethical problem with that. the commentators problem samar doctors need there may well be an ethical problem but we focus on the legal aspects. that's left it up to walk in isolation it's like public eye to cover the ethics of the issue. with. these blended oil products hold no secrets from arietta hard. she had already investigated the murky side of oil trade on behalf of greenpeace in a case that took place over ten years ago as part of the pro bowl koala scandal what was the massive tanker chartered by the swiss company traffic guru and doing this question intrigued public are the only thing it knew was that the vessel wanted to get rid of toxic waste generated by the cleaning of its tanks for months

in two thousand and six the tanker approached several ports including amsterdam before choosing to dump its unpopular cargo illegally in ivory coast. they came to amsterdam later were able to actually get it processed in a proper way but there eject at that option because they thought it was too expensive so that actually they brought again the waste with them and so they decided to dump it in there it was stressed africa how much how much expense i think of us around half a million dollars that they had to pay and foot traffic wise to long enough. to talk sic waste was intrusted to a small ivory coast business the disposed of it by any means possible. the health consequences were enormous one hundred thousand dive or eons fairly seventeen people died of poisoning. in less than

a year later the swiss company traffic who are entered into negotiations with the other laurean president two hundred forty million swiss francs were paid to ivory coast as a final settlement. but my concern is that the people are compensated. and that the state is compensated. these are my concerns. now our friends the traffic guru have agreed to our demands . the ivorian state refused any international legal involvement and the swiss company traffic who are denied all liability in the matter the company director made that quite clear at the time. first of all neither. the state of iowa recalls nor to figure out accept any liability for the events which happened last august and the needed to do mean element to this agreement is to

help the state of ivory coast financially but the president spoke tonight at that on television and clearly so. they have turning the page accept no liability corporate responsibility all these words that he's using i mean that's really the words of a company that. doesn't take any responsibility doesn't self reflex up on their own acts of turning the page maybe for them it's easy but not for the people that have been exposed. in twenty sixteen fifty thousand dive orian victim's father class action suit against traffic in the netherlands the proceedings are still on going. public i discovered that before cleaning its tanks prebble koala carried out low quality fuel blending the ngos investigation showed that the whole process was

systematic. then that is very common and legal but what is illegitimate in our eyes is if you blend if you mix you make a product that is of bad quality that you make it on purpose there's even software for it or you can actually see what is the most profitable. mix we can make and this is a practice that we see happening for example in the part of amps that are a little shit apart of contraire but also on board tankers it is. of the business model that's actually focused on making a lot of profit. the public eye expert emphasizes the fact that the bad quality oil blend was produced on purpose. the ports of amsterdam and rotterdam are considered hubs of such blending operations. to the reasons why it's such

a big problem is because it cares but ten refineries in the area and best serves storage capacity. arabs it also has a very strategic position for the west coasts of africa so that's why you also see gets all the imports in west africa but for the health it's coming from the outer region. there is no official information and it's also very secretive trading industry. also the terminals don't want to disclose the clients to which they're renting their take. in the netherlands a little known law allows us to demand lists of any dangerous substances stored by a company money at a patiently invoked this law for each terminal in amsterdam. sometimes they don't want to make copies so just sit with their ak and make notes. and

sometimes we were able to despite the fact that there is no official information we were able to identify some real cases where we saw that service charge for tankers actually were loading gasoline and diesel for the african market so we were able to find a recipe stis is the way we were able to see as well as how dirty the. it's worth that are being sent to africa. she takes us to one of the rare places in the port of amsterdam where we can get a bit closer to the tank has. all of this take four big red cars like this too to know if it depends a little bit. are how big the tank correspondence could easily be like eighteen hours or twenty hours and they're loading especially when they're a lot of blending while they're loading it's still the flows come from different techs here so they start with one and then the the next one will be there will be

so you see the whole infrastructure yeah this is interesting here is you can call it like highways and national roads and small roads for this stuff and this makes the blending or the like very efficient so yeah ok so i mean it's by the time you have different products yes now and of could be that those two tankers are actually commuting the cost of jet to two jetty. and maybe dare them if they would be commuting and they using the infrastructure of the of the terminal sometimes you see two tankers start each other and then they're only doing ship to ship operations so they don't use the infrastructure but it just are like they belong to . we also if there are any ships chartered by swiss companies setting sail for west africa. i checked my databases to see like the ships are into port today these two want to call brutus and not a light they just came from the u.s. but we see that there are regularly trades with west africa to look may or to laos

nigeria. money at a has downloaded an app on her phone that allows her to monitor the shipping traffic in ports around the world including amsterdam. and orders the little spot the records are actually means that seoul. you can see there's a lot of takers and we are here you can see the protests is here so let's let's see what they actually what information they get so if the picture of the ship say it's crude oil tanker many times you can see black little bits to fess up truck where the ship has been and then you can see it's the flag of the tankers from behind us it's two hundred thirty meters length most important ok but nothing about the owner of the people that trance that but it's very difficult is to find out that he was actually renting that tanker was owning the cargo and of

course deals are the most interesting people because they are instructing the tanker to what to do where to go but to blent it's not the public information at all though it's it's ship big intelligent database where you have to pay for as well so it's a bit but it's the only way to get some more information about it. that's all we learned but public guy had access to this information. this was companies maybe a dozen small amounts but also like the big ones like fee to. make your area are very big can dismiss this model actually they are very good at it they are very good in creating this very bad quality fuels and and it is because they are present all along the supply chain so they have started to capacity in strategic locations in many different places they even have refineries they even have to have access to hundreds of tankers so they are able to collect all those different

intermediate products and to use it whenever it's most profitable for them and they can even make a lot of money with it. there is something else most of the west african countries have crude oil deposits they even have refineries. and this is another thing public eye has shed light on. the other because it is paradoxical that these countries are exporting low sulfur all all over the world and especially to europe and getting health endangering fuels back and retire with us. why does a country like imported bad fuels if it has good quality crude oil and even its own refinery that some of the we. know that this is going to have a room. in the good news.

the good news is that this time we'll be able to ask directly why the refinery doesn't supply gun and with fuel. we discovered that it's an old state building dating back to nine hundred sixty seven well before the oil deposits were discovered in twenty ten years had previously processed crude oil from nigeria. in its heyday the refinery met up to fifty percent of domestic demand to any fell into debt before shutting down and leaving the field clear for private importers. the refinery started operating again in early twenty sixteen to liberalization of pump fuel prices and investments by international financial institutions has made it profitable again. the reopening coincided with the arrival of a new director. i'm very bullish about this reform where we came in in july

last year they said it couldn't be done they said we couldn't run it for more than three weeks and it would break down where they run. it continuously since the fourth of february this year after we made certain adjustments and it's working perfectly we are getting better than expected in youth all the imports that we've done we finished refining our first million barrels we made a decent profit on it our second million barrels is currently what is being run at the moment and we've booked our third cargo so the only thing it's working well the old lady is working well but she's going to get better because there are certain adjustments that we have to make that are being made so that all it is doing well and she's going to get better that's the official position of the government of ghana everything is fine but then you who see who represents the interests of the importance including

a swiss trading companies is frankly doubtful about the state refineries chances. politicians him up you know i'm not great businessman why can't miss convents government governance is more of a social service it has a redistributive role that thinking doesn't run in business if you're looking at profits you're looking for the viability you're thinking at the margins when you have businessman i think about competition when you're in the business man the point is not think about competition in terms of business it's about competition in terms of votes the two of them not the same ok so a refinery is real business and it's would be viable when government takes its self out of it it will also be viable where we have swiss investors with all that you can do to run to be investing in refineries in ghana. the refinery produces forty five thousand barrels a day not bad for a moribund operation and surprise surprise it produces good quality fuels to the

chagrin of the importance or frankly the truth is that the refined products we make here are better quality than we can ever bore we are producing high grade low so for. diesel. again you find out the importers bread they blend with. the p.k. dual purpose kerosene. to get to the right quantity of the right volume and spec in ghana we don't have to do that you know that they are making big money this restraint is companies with that. do you think they won't fight for their territory. well the interesting thing is that we. we don't see it as a bad thing because if you're fighting it means you're competing. a competition is good. that's why i am i'm very pro-business i'm very pro private sector because

ultimately if you opt the game because your state companies have upped the game the private sector will do this it can network five countries in eastern africa among them kenya decided at the end of twenty thirteen to adopt fuel quality standards close to european ones. to make this fuel depleted to other decision had no negative impact on consumer prices we have has no reduction in tax revenues or government subsidies only simply manage to limit the profits of the traders who were supplying inferior products or so for their labor they've only produce more escape it. will now reset the very franks to various studies conducted by organizations such as the world bank or the united nations environment program we have been able to calculate a lot at the cost of bringing these fuels up to the european quality level would be very low or when you would like anything or two cents per liter of gasoline or

diesel or. barely two missiles two cents per liter surely the swiss companies could try a bit harder. look take take all the swiss guys who want to do this that inform ani everybody needs to make profits to go to keep employment and also to go to push profits to just how this would also make investment and generate employment elsewhere so even though you look up profit as money but that money is actually having an economic value and implication to everybody. so it's not just money it's an economic. situation so how are doing the east african countries they doing i don't think it's a bet it's a but i thought i saw this so who's the agree with you it has to be done so. the politics of us lets you know this is a political decision and once political decisions are made business men follow the

. government wants to deliver price at the second level businessmen can divide it at that level if the quality is low and if they decide to keep the quality no you can't blame the businessman i think largely the people are no good because it's good to be good people are actually good because the system compels them to be good . but public eye says things aren't quite as simple as that. organization these are but there is a well organized lobby of fuel importers encana. in this sector there are often conflicts of interest between politicians and their entourage which interferes in business or in the effects they are often directly or indirectly themselves the owners of importing companies are going to not want this to be known so they try to obscure what is sometimes ethically questionable business methods. to approach

african governments need to improve their standards but that doesn't mean the swiss oil traders can do nothing because they could and should begin delivering european quality to africa immediately you wait until you are going to treat it. as none of this is illegal the only pressure the n.-g. o. can bring to bear is to question the reputation of swiss trading companies but will they can. on the african side and not the solution is taking shape. for the first time. we're saying that just like you have in europe we're going to use market forces to be more efficient to be more competitive to drive the stand and the quality up to protect our so. if we don't do that all the more arguments all the good things that should be done cannot be done because if you. don't put your so over the place where you can outcompete. there's no way

you're going to survive because charity is a very risky business but this he's trading companies they are not doing charity often on topic no they're not doing charity or philanthropy and they are exactly coming from this capitalist model as you say they're doing a capitalist model and if we don't have our capitalist business model that is able to compete with. that we are. trying to back it no longer wants to accept these bad fuels and watch the profits of the trading giant surge now each would like to join in the dance in the hope of setting its own temperament.

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