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west africa is importing jet fuel why. west africa is selling off its good crude oil going to why. and tell us swiss companies involved in this business. going to play. the flame of. the phone.

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 cut. so. this is the. official representatives and several v.i.p.'s have accepted the invitation. of. the media here as well. because that's

just you what can be assured to get it's. so dark but i figured i. was already live you know so. the minister of transport has 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 if you please visit i might just. get 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 to. if you.

look very pretty tired have a chance to come back pass by feel that good sound and this show they have clear to you if you're big go it would help if the room was there ever. what did he say. clean the fascinating 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 gonna 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 me. what does the prima energy boss think about that. did you know that the standard in ghana is rather poor especially in terms of cell phones right 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. yes it poses a problem. to comply with national standards and improve the products we import if we can. put it on our books. are they trying to do better as we said geo says that's not the case. for the swiss 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 very dirty products to africa and retarded for the the trimmers from the start of. it all that is perfectly legal so as a buffer. 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. that strategy is at the heart of the accusations the investigation by the ngo public eye focuses on crude oil traders like traffic who are whose african subsidiaries puma energy as well as whose partners in africa vivo energy and shell giants traffic orders revenues close to one hundred billion dollars a year its net income is reportedly two point six billion the choice of 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. it is hardly known

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. one. 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 diesel more than three hundred times higher than in switzerland. he did the three year investigation on behalf of the swiss in geo 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. because those fees are pretty difficult to try to 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 the 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 long running answerable to them sounds. weeks we question traffic by email they ignore questions they even refused to talk to us on the phone and finally declined to be interviewed referring us to their website when it's clearly promotional content. six he'll still use our excellent services are based in our global network. we

import the refined petroleum products that africa needs every 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 to fuel the multiple systems to piece through the. redefining trade in africa with a few good nickels on a freak response was look. we toll and evil energy both respects and comply with the regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. under a regular distribution company and the products available from these companies comply with local regulations. so in short some very powerful swiss companies supply west africa with few. that

couldn't be sold back home and it's legal but how can that be. if our investigation led us to the oil port of amsterdam and rotterdam where we soon realized how hard it is to penetrate the world of oil. emitted days ago and it has receded that's again. a. movie. absence and that's one of. the 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 and with. the other companies out there on my plate. since the swiss companies themselves refused 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 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 recall the actually of the confusion volume's into going on all right we are very dependent on. services and after seed of being significantly professional going called to him 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. ten years ago a fifty. dollar investment in their facility that enabled us to get vessels

in scene and get production show 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. subsidiary puma energy coming manages them. this infrastructure a lot of large vessels drawing more than ten meters to one load their oil product without having to talk. very critical. about the. stream to make it. so that has been constructed 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 levying a tax on competitor to platforms reverted to the canadian government in august twenty sixth team 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 the lower left hand in the world is not the worst one that is not the worst it's not the worst standouts thousand ppm i say yeah right ok very bad is not 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 are hard last year and they 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 w.h.o. has confirmed 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 today's please she's dead i see stands up to derek talk but 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 is a doctor available dr levine. he's busy judith's has already all the details so we sent it remains she printed a letter and we just need to reach the directors out please so this is quite urgent

thank you for your help. it's complicated so we try a new tack if you. believe. it a little bit leave it as. it is it is. too much 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. and this is. thank you thank you so.

much. sir. thank. goodness just as the minister is leaving we try to get an interview. he said. ok. the day coming. out. and. i have.

something. no 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. is that her believe petroleum traders supply and sell petroleum products in africa but they

also manufacture them 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. that 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 day. first petroleum gas for butane bottles for instance. gasoline for cars and nothing since

the sizing 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 oil and finally the heavy fuels. the oil trading companies buy these heavy fuels that low prices then just like in the kitchen recipe they add components that are 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. questions we went to look for answers in the oil harp known as the are a region that is in amsterdam rotterdam and.

is the blending of illegal mega-fun stauffer a subset of blending itself is legal. what's illegal is mixing waste into the products to ward off a favor waste must be properly disposed of and not mixed into other substances makes it almost of. a mark or is a prosecutor in rotterdam she's a member of the undone t. team of experts a dutch project that brings together justice and police departments to fight against environmental wrongdoing they focus mainly on fuels 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 equivalent to the one to come. the problem is that this procedure is so complex that nobody has really mastered it

some companies take advantage of this 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 syringe complex can we talk about. we suspect some companies are using the reach directive to turn waste into products reach under how to off the best way i think 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 of each beat. 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 costs 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 for the 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 the media with a lot of tobacco 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 it legal. yeah look yes it is possible for example to produce a product in the netherlands that contains too much or 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. is one of . 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 and doing this question intrigued public are the only thing you 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 here 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 this rest africa how much how much expense i think of us around half a million dollars that they had to pay and photographic wise along. the toxic waste was intrusted to a small ivory coast business the disposed of it by any means possible. the health consequences were enormous four hundred thousand died for eons fairly ill seventeen people died of poisoning. less than a year later the swiss company traffic who are entered into negotiations with the other laurian 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 ivory caused nor traffic. except in the liability for the events which happened last august and the need to demean element of these agreement is to help the state of ivory coast financially but the president spoke tonight a bit on television and clearly said 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 words of 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 or fifty thousand dive orian victims filed a class action suit against traffic in the netherlands the proceedings are still on going. public i discovered that before cleaning its tanks program koala carried out low quality fuel blending the n.g.o.'s investigation showed that the whole process was systematic. then that is very common and legal but what is illegitimate in our ours is if you blend if you mix you make

a product that is of bad quality that you make it on purpose software for it or you can actually see what is the most profitable. mixed economic and this is a practice that we see happening for example and part of amps that battleship a part of contraire but also on board tankers 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 boards of amsterdam and russia are considered hubs of such blending operation was. one of the key reasons why it's such a big one is because it cares but ten refineries in the area and best self storage capacity. it also has

a very strategic position for the west coasts of africa so that's why you also see that order 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 they are able to detect. in the netherlands a little known law allow citizens to demand lists of any dangerous substances stored by a company money yet are patiently invoked this law for each terminal in amsterdam. sometimes they don't want to make a copy to use it but i could 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 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 at how dirty the. roddick's word 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 tankers. all of this take for big ted has like this too to know if it depends a little bit are how big the tank correspondence with easily 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 techs here so they start with one and then 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 but enough ice makes the blending

or the earth below it very efficient so yeah ok so in each python you have different products yes ok now and of could be that those two tankers are actually commuting they call the jetty to jetty up. and maybe there them if there would be commuting of 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 are less baiting about because. we ask if there are any ships chartered by swiss companies setting sail for west africa. i checked my databases to see like what ships are into port today do you still want to call brutus and not a light they just came from the us but we see that they are regularly traits with west africa to look may or to largo's nigeria. money at or has downloaded a nap 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 records are actually means that so. you can see there's a lot of takers and we are here you can see the put us is here so let's let's see what they actually about the information they give so they give them a picture of the ship so it's crude oil tanker then its arms you can see like little bits the fess up truck where the strip has been and then you can see it's the flag of the tankers from behind us it's two hundred thirty meters length almost in port ok but nothing about the owner of the people that france know that it's very difficult is to find out that it was actually renting that tinker was owning the cargo and of course deeds are the most interesting people because they are instructing to take her to what to do where to go but to blent it's not

a public information at all that it's it's shipping intelligent database where you have to pay for as well so it so that but it's the only way to get some more information about it. that's all we learned about public i had access to this information. this was companies maybe a dozen small amounts but also like the big ones like fee to have a good adda kuria are very big in dismissed us model actually they're 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 location to many different places they even have refineries that 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 more

a lot of money with that. 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 retired at all with those. why does a country like imported bad fuels if it has good quality crude oil and even its own refinery that's moved so we. know that this is going to wrap 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 it 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 importers. the refinery started operating again in early twenty sixteen the liberalization of pulp 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 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 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 who see who represents the interests of the importance including the 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 the comments comment governance is more of a social service it has

a redistributive rule that thinking doesn't run in business if you look at our profits you look at viability you think of the mothers when you have business men 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 can order saying ok so a refinery is real business and it would be viable when government takes its self out of it it will also be viable what we have so this invest this with all that you can do to run to be invest in the 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 we are producing high grade low so for. diesel. again you find out the importers bread 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 opt the game because your state companies have upped the game the private sector will do this or can that we're five countries in eastern africa

among them kenya decided at the end of twenty thirteen to adopt fuel quality standards close to european ones. simitis you'll be privy to the decision had no negative impact on consumer prices you have has no reduction in tax revenues or government subsidies is only simply managed to limit the profits of the traders who were supplying inferior products or so for their neighbors sure they've already put in more escape. resected if you lead a 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 that at the cost of bringing these fuels up to the european quality level would be very low i don't know when you would like anything or two cents per liter of gasoline or diesel or do so very true this. two cents per liter surely the swiss

companies could try a bit harder. look to 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 go to post profits to just how this would also make investment 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 think is a better to put out because all the solution 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. government wants to deliver price at the second level businessmen can divide it at

that level in the quality is low and if they decide to keep the quality no you can't blame the businessman i think 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 they're going to murder be organising these are but there is a well organized lobby of fuel importers in ghana. in this sector and 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 they could and should begin delivering european quality to africa immediately you didn't get it they were 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 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 them then we are. trying to find back she no longer wants to accept these bad fuels and watch the profits of the trading giants sanj now each would like to join in the dance in the hope of setting its own template.

close. her. school to a beautiful beach and just waiting to be discovered. you can find castle smallest areas churches and chapels and of course plenty of vineyards who sit out on the fence sitting next edition through social journey that's not spin it's. the little. one to the elephants need to. know there's a plastic model turned into a paving stone why do algenis make it clear. good idea can work

in the unwary and there are people developing smart solutions everywhere. let's inspire each other to the environment a magazine of eco at africa thirty minutes on t w. the top stories followed across social media share comments and content welcome to the to be. a blessing. and a curse placed source of nature and in this. monsoon the song the truck the first few months to play the song was the song come to a place source of luck because of the most destruction played

monsoon starting may twenty third going to double the fun. at least ten people have been killed in a shooting at a houston area high school in texas usa authorities arrested the attacker a seventeen year old student at the scene it's the deadliest school shooting in the u.s. since seventeen students were killed in parklane florida in february igniting a national debate about gun control. a boeing seven three seven ally know with around one hundred people on board has crashed near cuba's capital city have.