british tell us a little bit more about the media fever. but for the american brokaw's in particular is an absolutely massive event event it's the yeah american dream basically coming through an american prince says in the making there are seventy nine american networks and that right is there are over five thousand just you kate dreaded broad cuz journalists and you know many wise a massive massive media event and a massive thank you. you're up to date on g.w. thanks for. going. to make. sure that people who've known for information a powerful part of the canyons they want to express t.w. on facebook and twitter up to date and in touch.

west africa is importing jazz he fuel why. west africa is selling all feats good crude oil why. and tell us which companies involved in this business.

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 the. official representatives and several v.i.p.'s have accepted the invitation. for the for.

the media here as well i. think because it's us who will be assured to go it's. so dark but i figured here i. saw a great deal of you know so. the minister of transport is officially inaugurating several kerosene tanks dedicated 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 visit the muppets. meanwhile the p.r. visit is going ahead at full speed. the next stop this brand new filling station into my energy commons who now owns forty one service stations in ga. that might not seem

a lot but the company is very ambitious you want go to. the way to do it for your service station. clean fuel. critics have a chance to come by pass by through that good sound i just got show they have been through to do it go big go would help if it was serious but. what did he say. clean the facts maybe 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 donna 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 but 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 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 i suppose the problem yes it poses a problem aims to comply with national standards and improve the products we import if we can. put it on a ports. are they trying to do better as we said geo says that's not the case. this was petroleum traders have a deliberate strategy clearly are exploiting the weaknesses of the standards that apply in africa and bringing high quality fuel to europe for its are trying very inferior have. three dirty products to africa and retaliate for the the trip worth

the start of. it all that is perfectly legal so as a profit 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 would. do. that strategy is at the heart of the accusations the investigation by the ngo public eye focuses on swiss against crude oil traders like traffic who are whose african subsidiaries puma energy as well as vittorio whose partners in africa vivo energy and shell china's traffic orders revenues close to one hundred billion dollars a year its net income is reportedly two point six billion. and 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 about swiss 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. is more. there is a good deal for this one. here. 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 diesel more than three hundred times higher than in switzerland. he knew how did the three year.

investigation on behalf of the swiss in geo public are formally 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. fields. if. 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 are 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 are not subject to securities exchange floor or 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 means that

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 slip through the local c.c.'s the police through traffic or redefining trade in africa who defeated nicholas on a few features response was look at. the toll and vivo energy both respects and comply with the regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. under regulations it is not possible for be told to directly supply vivo energy with petroleum products in vivo 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 home and it's legal but how can that be. our investigation led us to the oil port of amsterdam and russia damn well we soon realized how hard it is to penetrate the world of oil. is a good one as well sort of the. same but. if you. 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 my back. since the swiss companies themselves risk. used to answer us we were pleased to get an interview with the representative of foreign importers in ghana. canadian law stipulates that foreign oil importers must have local representation these local companies are grouped in a number an organization whose president is sin yahoo c he immediately confirms that some swiss trading companies are indeed present in ghana but they have hidden . recall that we are between huge volumes into gonna be all right we are very dependent on. services and i've just seen of being significantly professional glenn called you are british

petroleum also here if they are investing in ghana it means that it's good business is. business so that influence has been very very very positive. ten years ago made about a fifty. dollar investment in their facility that enabled us to get. it in c. and go through some pipelines. this is a fine example of the swiss presence these morning platforms and. the main deepwater seaports capital traffic built them in two thousand and six. names of security puma energy gonna manage them. this infrastructure along as large vessels drawing more than ten metres to one load their oil product without having to talk.

very critical for gone above about. stream to making products available so that has been constructive i mean for. the company had a ten year contract with each invested in and maintained the facilities using them mainly for its own oil tankers and levine attacks on competitors 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. there is that a lot. in the world is the worst one that is not the worst it's not the worst stunned stunned thousand ppm i see you're right ok it was very bad it's not great. it's not great three thousand ppm is not great and we all agree it's not great it's

a discussion that we are hot last year and he said discussion that we think should translate to reaction in the coming year. in the meantime keep on hoping the sulfur dioxide from exhaust fumes is everywhere its direct influence on us among their entry infections and even cardiovascular diseases has been known for a long time recently the w.h.o. has confirmed a link between sulfur dioxide levels and lung cancer. so why did gonna continue to stick to the three thousand ppm standard for diesel i would like to talk to judith please as it stands up executive director is it possible thank you. we're trying to get an answer from the canadian authorities. as if you didn't. know. she's not here and the

doctor. won't talk to him. he's busy giblets has already all the details we sent to the maid she printed lets out and we just need to reach the director now please so this is quite it thank you for your help. it's complicated so we try a new tack eat. believe. it will. it leave. it. to my energy to traffic or a subsidiary is holding an opening ceremony in one of the fanciest hotels in a crowd. the program

says several high ranking officials are attending and it's true the oil minister himself is here in good company. says this is the very first. thank you thank you. thank. goodness just as the minister is leaving we try to get an interview.

ok you don't like using them it. sounds. like. something. you. don't. think 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. that her believe petroleum traders supply and sell petroleum products in africa but they also manufacture them in a process known as blending. the 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 . over it what did he say about the fuel quality. by deliberately lowering it to get as close as possible to the legal limits in africa. over the. years 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 bottles for instance gasoline for cars and nothing for synthesizing plastic next in line is kerosene farah 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 fuel. oil trading companies buy these heavy fuels that low prices then just like in the kitchen 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 cold africa. there

are so many. questions we went to look for answers in the oil has known as the are a region that is in amsterdam rotterdam and. is the blending of illegal megaphone stauffer a subset of blending itself is legal. and what's illegal is mixing waste into the products to ward off a waste must be properly disposed of and not mixed into other substance it's meant that almost of. color is a prosecutor in rotterdam she's a member of the undone team 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 a registration protocol before being sold in europe it's called reach it forces traders to register their products in a database to obtain equivalents of the one nine hundred sixty come. the problem is that this procedure is so complex that nobody has really mastered it some companies take advantage of this a fact not lost on the lawyer. i have another perspective from the hunt half for us from the point of view of criminal lawyers reach is a challenge. it's not only legally but also chemically complex syringe complex can we talk about what. we suspect some companies are using the reach directive to turn waste into products reach on their heart attack on the off the best way i think it's only an assumption. but we believe they're exploiting it they're misusing it to circumvent the laws on the

disposal of waste products each beat all over the office off of us having article and gene. this is how they double their profits. if the waste isn't disposed of by an approved disposal company which costs money to cost at all but is instead mixed into other products it disappears in that cuts costs that's that's the first point today and today is secondly they also earn money because the resulting fuel volume is greater mostly at the waist and sell it as a product so they benefit twice and this is taken against. in almost all station just we're looking for illegal profits as part of an investigation into reach which will allow us to confiscate them you know 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 stops poppy then 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 problems and my daughter's needs there may well be an ethical problem but we focus on the legal aspects and. that's left it up to walk in isolation it's like public eye to cover the ethics of the issue. these blended oil products hold no secrets from marietta 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 trafigura in 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 announce that i'm gay they 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 the rest africa how much how much expense i think of us around half a million dollars that they have to pay and for 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 died for eons fairly seventeen people died of poisoning. less than a year later the swiss company traffic who are entered into negotiations with the other laurean president to one hundred forty million swiss francs were paid to ivory. just as a final settlement. 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 ivory cause nor. accept any liability for the offense which happened last august and the 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 we have to. have turning the page accept no liability corporate responsibility all these words that he is using i mean that's really the word suffer a company that. doesn't take any responsibility doesn't self reflex upon their own acts and turning the page maybe for them it's easy but not for the people that have been exposed. in twenty sixteen fifty thousand dive or even victim's father class action suit against traffic who are 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 n.g.o.s investigation showed that the whole process was systematic. bending is very common and legal but what is illegitimate in our eyes is if you blend if you mix you make prada. it's that is of bad quality but 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 is. a their business model that's actually focused on making a lot of profit. when the public eye expert emphasizes the fact that the bad quality oil blend was produced on purpose. the port of

amsterdam and rotterdam are considered hubs of such blending operations. one of the key reasons why it's such a big one is because it cares about ten refineries in the area and best serves storage capacity. and it also has a very strategic position for the west coast of africa so that's why you also see the order of the imports in west africa but for the health it's coming from the outer reaches. there's no official information and it's also very secretive trading industry and also the terminals don't want to disclose the clients to which their relatives are there. in the netherlands a little known law allow citizen risk 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 back and make notes . and sometimes we were able to despite the fact that there's no official information we were able to identify some real cases where we saw that service charter tankers actually. we're loading gasoline and diesel for the african markets and we were able to find a blend recipe stis is the way we were able to see a swell of how dirty the products were 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. all of this take for the head because like this to two loaves of defense a little bit a are big to ten correspondence with easily feel like eighteen hours or twenty hours and they're loading especially when there are a lot of blending while they are loading it's still the flows come from different

takes here so they start with one that then the next one will be there will be so you see the whole infrastructure yeah this is interesting yes you can call it like highways and national roads and small roads but it just makes the blending or the low it very efficient so yeah ok so in each python you have different products yes or no and of could be that those two tankers are actually commuting the cost of jet to two jetty. and maybe they are then 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 i just our landlady about that. we asked her if there are any ships chartered by swiss companies setting sail for west africa. i checked my

databases to see like what ships are in the port today these two once called brutus and not a light they just came from the us but we see that they her regularly trades with west africa to look may or to largo's nigeria. money had to has downloaded an app on have phone that allows her to monitor the shipping. traffic in ports around the world including amsterdam. at all just a little spot the red bars are actually means that so you can see there's a lot of takers and we are here and you can see the protests is here so let's let's see what they actually what information they get so they give them a picture of the ship so it's crude oil tanker many times you can see black little bits the federal truck where the ship has been and then you can see it's the flag of the tanker is from behind us it's two hundred thirty meters length almost it's

in port ok but nothing about the owner of the people that friends know but it's very difficult is to find out who's actually renting that tanker who's owning the cargo and of course deeds are the most interesting people because they are instructing the tanker to up to do where to go but to blent it's not a public information at all though it's it's shipping 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 public guy had access to this information. was the swiss company so maybe it does some small amounts but also like the big ones like fee to traffic good docs kuria are very big in dismissed us model actually they're very good at it they're 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. 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 settles with us. why does a country like ghana imported bad fuels if it has good quality crude oil and even

its own refinery that's in the evening and the noise of the businesses in and around. the good news. the good news is that this time we'll be able to ask directly why the refinery doesn't supply gonna 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 then it fell into debt before shutting down and leaving the field clear for private importance. the refinery started operating again in early twenty sixteen the liberalization of pump fuel prices and investments by international financial institutions has make

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 so 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 is 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 know who see who represents the interests of the importance including the swiss trading companies is frankly doubtful about the state refineries chances. politicians in my opinion i'm not great businessman why can't miss incumbents comment governance is more of a social service it has a redistributive rule that thinking doesn't run in business if you look at profits you're looking for that viability you're thinking on the margins when you're a 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 to say ok so a refinery is real business and it would be viable when government takes its self out of it it will either be viable where we have swiss investors with all that you can do to rather be investing in refineries in government. 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 pour we are producing high grade low so for us or your diesel. again you find out the importers blend and 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. and competition is good. that's why i am i'm very pro-business i'm very pro private sector because ultimately if you up the game because your state companies have upped the game the private sector would do this it can that were five countries in eastern africa among them kenya decided at the end of twenty thirteen to adopt fuel quality standards close to european ones. in this field if you needed to the decision had no negative impact on consumer prices you have us no reduction in tax revenues or government subsidies he's simply managed to limit the profits of the traders who were supplying inferior products or for their labor for that he or the program was created. all the research will be very frank to various studies conducted by organizations such as the world bank or

the united nations environment program we have been able to calculate look at the cost of bringing these fuels up to the european quality level would be very low only the swiss companies could try a bit harder. look take take all the swiss guys who want to do this. in for money everybody needs to make profits to go to keep employment and also to want to post profits to just shell this would also make investments to 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 i don't think it's a bet it's a but i think it's also so who's the agree with you it has to be done so we have the political muscle that's you know it's a political decision and once political decisions are made businessmen follow. the government wants to deliver price at a certain level businessman can divide it at that level in the quality is low and

if you 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. organising these are but there is a well organized lobby of fuel importers in ghana if you know 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 noted 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 if you include the references. 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 another 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 standards and the quality up to protect ourselves. if we don't do that that all the moral arguments all the good things that should be done cannot be done because if you don't put yourself in a place where you can outcompete. there's no way you're going to survive because charity is a very risky business but this restraining 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. then we are. trying to fight back she no longer wants to accept these bad fuels and watch the profits of the trading giant sanj now each would like to join in the dance in the hope of setting its own template.

kickoff life. takes football personally. another edition of all that is world com preview this week group take kindly on al massey and argentina when the cob first time. looking forward to iceland stay buick i am this. thirteen stone d.w. . how the germans strung together in one nation from show the money to chancellor although from bismarck. the history of the germans has

been shaped by great movers. nice well always to bring my royal college of that to protect christendom and spread this line truth. even as we learn to forgive so. we took a back to be called the enemy. and stand by courageous decisions placed above the mountains toes your masters as we have received the crown of our own from god not from this presumptuous servant out of the realm of this holy sacrament soccer league play we must forge peace. the germans would. play news live from our land of peace

hopes for a vive for eastern ukraine russia's president meets germany's chancellor in the black sea resort of sochi putin says both sides will reconsider options for a multinational peacekeeping mission. we'll go live to sochi also coming up the world health organization says the national threat level of an ebola outbreak in the democratic republic of congo's to very high and there have been twenty five deaths so far.