involved in the best mode of history. you can fault that the defeated liverpool manager i think there's going to be more discussion about that tackle on most a lot from set you're almost well leave that. west africa is selling all feats good crude oil why. and tell us which companies involved in this business.

for free it's a big day for puma energy of the oil company has acquired additional oil market shares in guyana and it's spreading the news. of the. official representatives and several v.i.p.'s of accepted the invitation. of.

the media here is well. this is just a short it's a good it's. so dark but i figured i'd. always already live 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 and he's going to visit my just. meanwhile the p.r. visit is going ahead at full speed. the next stop this brand new filling station in puma energy carlos' 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 car service station. that's to bring clean fuel. there is pretty tired of a chance to come by bus but for that good sound good show they have clean fuel to do it go they go would help the defendant was zero but. what did he say. clean the facts may be but the fuel itself the sulfur level is the issue and 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 its sale would be prohibited in much of the well to. what is the puma 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. yes it poses a problem. to comply with national standards and improve the products we import if we can. are they trying to do better. that's not the case. for the swiss petroleum traders have a deliberate strategy chlorox pointing the weaknesses of the standards that apply in africa and bringing high quality fuel to europe that it's are trying very inferior very dirty products to africa in return for the the crime was 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. do. that strategy is at the heart of the accusation the investigation by the ngo public eye focuses on crude oil traders like traffic who are african subsidiaries puma energy as well as whose partners in africa vivo energy and shell. traffic orders revenues close to one hundred billion dollars a year its net income is reportedly two point six billion the choice 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 air. so. it is hardly known that

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 it because building petrol stations in africa. is mark i am from switzerland there is zero for this one is. there. in the course of his investigation marking visited petrol stations and took reference sample from the pumps in asia african countries. his analyses showed that the sulphur levels in diesel more than three hundred times higher than in switzerland. he did the three year investigation on behalf of the swiss n.-g. o. 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 your thesis the photos are pretty difficult to go on because we saw it try to strategies rely on lack of transparency 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 are listed on the stock exchange and the belong to their managers that managers are the main shareholders they're not accountable to small shareholders and not subject to securities exchange long running answerable to them sounds. 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. xix it also is our excellent service is ours. based on our

global network visit but we import the refined petroleum products that africa needs to move exhaust 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 field a multiple of the pieces of. redefining trade in africa who defeated nicholas on a freak featureless response was look at. the toll and evil energy both respects and comply with the regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. under going to regulations it is not possible for the 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 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 imports of amsterdam and rotterdam where we soon realized how hard it is to penetrate the world of oil. immediately days ago. in west africa we chose to focus on a country where the swiss companies are involved in both the production and distribution of oil. there are other companies that have

their own like that. 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 entry of the computer games into gonna be all right we are very dependent on. services and i've just seen of being significantly professional going call 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. ten years ago made about a fifty. dollar investment in their facility that enabled us to get. it in scene and get production on shore some pipelines. 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. and subsidiary to my energy coming manages them. this infrastructure allows large vessels drawing more than ten meters to one load their oil product without having to talk. very critical. of the. 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 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 he seemed to have touched a sore spot is. one of the lowest there is that the lowest. in the world is not the worst one that is not the worst it's not the worst standouts standard thousand ppm i see you're right ok very bad is 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 have had 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 standard for diesel i would like to talk to judith please she's dead as a stand up executive director talk is it possible thank you. we're trying to get an answer from the canadian authorities. and is it you do. know. she's not here and is a doctor available tech talk to him. he's busy she gets has already all the details we sent to me made she print the letter and we just need to reach the director se so this is quite urgent thank you for your help . it's complicated so we try

a new tack. it was the flu just. leave it. to my 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. good reason to. thank you.

sir. thank. you. just as the minister is leaving we try to get an interview. we said. ok. we are you doing. something. we.

go do you. 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 jetty 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. 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. what does he say about a fuel quality. 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 to sizing clastic next in line is kerosene fair acclaims 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. trading companies buy these heavy fuels that low prices. just like an expansion recipe they add components. 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 hump known as the are a region that is in amsterdam rotterdam and twelve. is the blending of illegal may now from a subset of lending itself is legal. illegal is mixing waste into the

products to ward off a waste must be properly disposed of and not mixed into other substances things that almost of. ren's can 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 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 column. of 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. have a nice press before the hand half reverse 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 what. we suspect some companies are using the reach directive to turn waste into products reach under how dark and off the vest 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 product meat all over the office to office having article. and. this is how they double 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 to stay 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 for the sort of steak or against. in almost all station system we're looking for illegal profit says part of an investigation into reach which will allow us to confiscate the media with a lot of book. 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 then is it possible to do that is it 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 africa. there's no ethical problem with that. the common interest problems and murdoch is 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 for money at a hundred 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 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 once a day decided to dump it rest africa how much how much expense i think it was around half a million dollars that they had to pay and fox traffic wise along nothing. the talks like waste was intrusted to a small ivory coast business that disposed of it by any means possible. the health consequences were enormous one hundred thousand died for aeons fairly 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. 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 denied all liability in the matter the company director made that quite clear at the time. for the wall. to state about recalls or. accept any 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 i did on television and clearly. turning the page accept no liability corporate responsibility all these words that

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. yes in twenty sixteen fifty thousand die very in victim's father class action suit against traffic who are in the netherlands the proceedings are still on going. public and i discovered that before cleaning its tanks prober koala carried out low quality fuel blending the ngos 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 makes you make a product that is of better quality that you make it on purpose there is evil software for it or you can actually see like what is the most profitable mixed

economic and this is a practice that we see happening for example and part of and that i have that option a part of on terror 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 ports of amsterdam and rotterdam are considered hopes of such blending operation it's. one of the key reasons why it's such a big one is because it pass ten refineries in the area and best self 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

other region. 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're renting their take. 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 copies so i just see 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 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 big head goes like this too to know if it depends a little bit on how big the tank or a square that's could easily be 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 techs yeah so they start with one and then the the next by this 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 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 big head goes like this too to know if there's a little bit odd how big the tank or a square that's could easily be like eighteen hours or twenty hours and they're loading. especially when their love of lending while they are loading it's still the flows come from different techs yeah so they start with one and then that the next one will be it 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 enough of this makes the blending or the loading very efficient so yeah ok so in each pipeline you have different products yes ok and it could be that those two tankers are actually commuting they call it jetty to jetty. and maybe there then if they would be commuting a bit 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 they about that. we ask if there are any ships chartered by swiss companies setting sail for west africa. i checked my databases to see like bob's ships are in the port today these two once a core group does i'm not a light they just came from the us but we see that they are regularly trades with west africa to look may or to largo's nigeria. money has or has downloaded an app on her 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 to us so you can see there's a lot of takers and we are here you can see the plutus is here

so let's let's see what they should be with the information they give so that if and then the picture of the ship so it's crude oil tanker then it's and you can see like a little bit defensive track where the ship has been and then you can see it's deflect off the tang. it's from behind us it's two hundred thirty meters length of mosses import ok but nothing about the owner of the people that rants about that is very difficult is to find out that it was actually rented getting there was owning the cargo and of course deals 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. being 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 i had access to this information. this was companies maybe

a dozen small amounts but also like the big ones like fee to be good i. like your you are very big in this business 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 location to many different places to even have refineries that even have they 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 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.

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 retires at all with those. why does a country like ghana 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 ramp to. 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 that 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 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 in youth's on 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 is 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 incumbents government governance is more of a social service it has a redistributive room the thinking doesn't run in business if you look at profits you're looking for the 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 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 where we have swiss investors with all that you can do to rather 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 pour we are producing high grade low so for us oreo diesel. again you find out the importers bred 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 want to 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. gotz 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 will do this or. 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 one. the movies you repeated to interpret incision have no negative impact on consumer

prices you have us no reduction in tax revenues all government subsidies simply manage to limit the profits of the traders who were supplying inferior products or so for their labor for the for the produce more escaped it. resected if you did a very franks to various studies conducted by organized nations such as the world bank or the united nations environment program we have been able to calculate at a cost of bringing these fuels to the european quality level would be very low of you when you would like a thing or two cents per liter of gasoline or diesel. that's. 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. informally everybody needs to make profits do you want to keep employment as a tool to push profits to just how this who 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 don't think it's a better to find out how it's all so who's the ugly with you it has to be done so. politics of us lets you know this is a political decision and once political decisions are made business men follow. government was in the 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 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 i says things aren't quite as simple as that. organization 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 direct or indirect they are often directly or indirectly themselves 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 and immediately you are included. 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 stunned and the quality up to protect ourselves. if we don't do 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 at their mercy.

trying to fight back it no longer wants to accept these bad fuels and watch the profits of the trading shine sanj now each would like to join in the dance in the hope of setting its own template.

kamal of this point must cry for the living not for the dead. for killing goes on in colombia. the us is now thirteen guerrillas and twelve of their family members have been murdered since the peace treaty sixty seven community leaders are being mounted it's still in colombia one activist is murdered every four days i don't really associate. the bloody peace in colombia the system already told you. you can tell a lot about a society by its garbage. the first six months for the rich but many poor people feel first their chance of survival. and i could be lunch for today just like that. our reporters travel to nairobi and we're going to meet people you know the true value of courage. it has created a thriving parallel economy. the but what does all this mean for

economic inequality around the world you guys are starting class walking the response to that statement should be yes we are starting to lance walk here because we're. actually at disrupt an economy the rich blame the truck loads of reports starting june eleventh on g.w. . this is d.w. news live from berlin germany's far right takes to the streets and so does its

opponents the anti immigration alternative for germany has been holding a rally in the german capital with multiple counter-demonstrations trying to block its progress through central berlin thousands of police have been deployed to keep them apart. go to the brandenburg gate in just a second. or two on the program the polls open in colombia's presidential election in a vote that could have an impact.