for the rich but for many poor people it offers their own chance of survival. and i could be lunch for today just like that. no reporters travel to nairobi and work and know the true value of garbage. it has created a thriving parallel economy. what does all this mean for economic inequality around the world you guys are starting class war the response to that state mr big yes we are starting to as we walk here because we're tot he could. disrupt an economy. the bridge plate truck solution reports starting june eleventh on g.w. .

west africa is importing jeje fuels why. west africa is selling all feeds good crude oil and 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. 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 figure i. 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 please visit. meanwhile the p.r. visit is going ahead at full speed. the next stop this brand new filling station in puma energy camas 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.

service station. that's serving me in fuel. credits i have a chance to come back. for that good and sure they have clean fuel to do it go big go would help if it was zero but. what did he say good. clean to vaccinate. 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. 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 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 supported yes it poses a problem aims to comply with national standards and improve the products we import if we can. put it on our 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 for are exploiting the weaknesses of the standards that apply in africa and bringing high quality fuel to europe those are trying very inferior very dirty products to africa and retaliate for the the trimmers has started. it all that is perfectly legal. so as

a prophet 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 swiss based crude oil traders like traffic gura whose african subsidiaries puma energy as well as whose partners in africa vivo energy and shell child's traffic orders revenue is close to one hundred billion dollars a year its net income is reportedly two point six billion. an extreme heavyweight turns over one hundred sixty eight billion in sales but that's all we know its profits are confidential. switzerland plays a major part in this thirty five percent of worldwide oil trading takes place in the geneva area. so. it is hardly known

companies trading in oil are present at all levels. reducing the fuel and in a fairly recent phenomenon for the past five or six years swiss oil traders have been buying building petrol stations in africa. is a market. there is. one. there. in the course of his investigation visited petrol stations and took reference samples from the pumps in eight african 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 formerly called bet on declaration which is known for its critical stance on commodity trading. this time the investigators infiltrated the secret of the oil traders.

are very difficult to try to strategies rely on lack of transparency and the 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 and managers are the main shareholders and 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. musical sylvie's 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 and safety the environment and the communities where we work is at the heart of all our processes and decisions to fuel the local police the police through the. redefining trade in africa who defeated nicholas on a freak response was. the toll and evil energy both respect and comply with the regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. under regulations it is not possible for vitol to directly supply evo energy with petroleum products. the evo 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 port of amsterdam and rotterdam where we soon realized how hard it is to penetrate the world of oil. it's a little bit ago and it was sort of that's a good. move yeah. 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. there are 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 sin you will see he immediately confirms that some swiss trading companies are indeed present in ghana but they have hidden. from recall the on the brink huge volumes into gonna be all right we are very dependent on. services and i've just seen of being significantly professional glencore to hear you are british petroleum also here if they are investing in ghana it means that it's good business is. business so that influence has been 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 show through some pipelines and. 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. games of security human energy qana manages them. this infrastructure allows large vessels drawing more than ten metres 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 seen 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 spots. 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 afghanistan thousand ppm i see is 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 hard last year and he said 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. their entry infections and even cardiovascular diseases has been known for a long time recently the w h o has confirmed ending between sulfur 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 james please she's dead as he stands up executive director is it possible thank you. we're trying to get an answer from the canadian authorities. and if you didn't. know. she's not here and the doctor. talked to him. he's busy

judith's has already all the details we sent to the maids she printed lets out and we just need to reach the director on the whole please so this is quite it thank you for your help. it's complicated so we try a new tack if. you. eat out of it is it legal. to eat it. too much energy to traffic or a subsidiary is hosting 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 very. thankful thank you. thank. goodness just as the minister is leaving we try to get an interview. at. least it may be. ok.

you say let me talk. about. 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 jetty products in his country but this was often asked and last mission. the public eye report reveals that it all fits into

a very well thought out business model. 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. deliberately lowering it to get as close as possible to the legal limits in africa. that. he has an explanation refining crude oil resembles the process of distillation the product is heated and depending on the temperature various components from the cleanest to the. first petroleum gas

for butane bottle for. gasoline for cars and nothing 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 basically oil and finally the heavy fuels. trading companies buy these heavy fuels at low prices then just like in the kitchen recipe they add components. to create the highest possible quantity of fuel at the lowest possible price of 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 have known as

the are a region that is in amsterdam rotterdam and where. is the blending of illegal fun stuff and a subset of lending itself is legal. what's illegal is mixing waste into the products to ward off a waste must be properly disposed of and not mixed into other substances meant that almost of. our core 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 the one nine hundred thirty come. in 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 question from the one task for us from the point of view of criminal lawyers reach is a challenge. it's not only legally but also chemically complex complex can we talk about. we suspect some companies are using the reach directive to turn waste into products reach their heart attack on the 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 meet all of us having article. and what a gene. 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 today and today is secondly they also earn money because the resulting fuel volume is greater stay at the waist and sell it as a product so they benefit twice and so the streaker against. in almost all station says we're looking for illegal profits as part of an investigation into reach which will allow us to confiscate them you know 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 legal. yeah the clerk yes it is possible for example to produce

a product in the netherlands that contains too much of something that can't be used here but which can be sold in asia or africa of africa. there's no ethical problem with that. the commentators problem samar doctors need there may well be an ethical problem but we focus on the legal aspects. let's lift it up walk in isolation is like public eye to cover the ethics of the issue. these blended oil products hold no secrets from arietta hard. she had already investigated the murky side of oil trade on behalf of greenpeace in a case that took place over ten years ago as part of the pro bowl koala scandal what was the massive tanker chartered by the swiss company 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 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 to actually they brought again the waste with them and so decided to dump it stressed africa how much how much expense i think of us around half a million dollars that they have to pay and photographic wise to long enough. to talk sick 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 dive or eons fairly seventeen people died of poisoning. less than

a year later the swiss company traffic who are entered into negotiations with the of orian president two hundred forty million swiss francs were paid to ivory coast . just as a final settlement. was my concern is now our friends a 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. accept any liability for the events 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.

they are turning the page accept no liability corporate responsibility all these words that he's using i mean that's really the words of a company that. doesn't take any responsibility doesn't self reflect 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 orian 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 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 mix you make

a product that is of bad quality but you make it on purpose and there's even software for it or you can actually see what is the most profitable mic. we can make and this is a practice that we see happening for example in the port of amsterdam but also the 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 rotterdam are considered hubs of such blending operation it's. one of the game reasons why it's such a big what is because in paris ten refineries in the area and best serve storage capacity. it also has

a very strategic position for their west coast of africa so that's why you also see that order the imports in west africa for the health it's coming from the outreach or. there's no official information and it's also very secretive trading industry and also the terminals don't want to disclose to clients to which they're ready to take. in the netherlands a little known law allows 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 sit 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 charge for

tankers actually were loading gasoline and diesel for the african market so you were able to find a blend recipe stis is the way we were able to see as well at 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 tankers. of this lake for big tech has like this too to know if there's a little bit. are how big the tank respondents could easily feel like eighteen hours or twenty hours and they're loading especially when they're a lot of blending while they're loading it's still the flows come from different tracks 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 road since small roads but it makes the blending or the

like very efficient so yeah ok so it's by plan you have different products yes ok and it could be that those two tankers are actually commuting the call of gypsy to jetty. and maybe there then if they would be commuting are they using the infrastructure of the of the terminal sometimes you see two tankers to start each other and then they're only doing ship to ship operations so they don't use the infrastructure but i just are like 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 what ships are in the port today these two once called brutus and not a light they just came from the u.s. but we see that they are regularly traits with west africa to look may or to largo's nigeria. money answer 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 so you can see. that's a lot of takers and we are here you can see the protests is here so let's let's see what they actually about the information they get so to give them a picture of the ship so it's crude oil tanker many times you can see like a little bit it's the festool truck where this 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 that he was actually renting a good thing or was owning the cargo and of course deals are the most interesting people because they are instructing to take her to up to do where to go but to

blend it's not a public information that all the. 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 public guy had access to this information. was the swiss companies maybe a dozen small amounts but also like the big ones like feet to. make your ear are very big can dismiss this 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 they even have to have access to hundreds of tankers so they are able to collect all those different intermediate products and to use it whenever it's most profitable for them and they can even

make a lot of money with it. there is something else most of the west african countries have crude oil deposits they even have refineries. and this is another thing public eye has shed light on. 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 retards at all the first. wife is a country like ghana import bad fuels if it has good quality crude oil and even its own refinery that's moot 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 any 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 pump fuel prices and investments by international financial institutions have made it profitable again. the reopening coincided with the arrival of a new director. i'm very bullish about this reform where we came in in july last year they said it couldn't be done they said we couldn't run it for more than

three weeks and it would break down where they run. it continuously since the fourth of february this year after we made certain adjustments and it's working perfectly we are getting better than expected in youth all the imports that we've done we finished refining our first million barrels we made a decent profit on it our second million barrels is currently what is being run at the moment and we've booked our third cargo so the only thing 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 they're all ladies doing well and she's going to get better that's the official position of the government of ghana everything you find but then you who see who represents the interests of the importance including a swiss trading companies is frankly doubtful about the state refineries chances. politicians him up you know i'm a great businessman why can't miss the comments come and governance is more of

a social service it has a redistributive rule that thinking doesn't run in business we're looking at profits you're looking for that viability you're thinking on the margins when you have businessman i think about competition when you're in the business man the point is not think about competition in terms of business it's about competition in terms of votes the two of them are not the same ok so a refinery is a real business and it's 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 run to be investing in refineries in ghana. the refinery produces forty five thousand barrels a day not bad for a moribund operation and surprise surprise it produces good quality fuels to the chagrin of the importance of art frankly the truth is that the refined products we

make here are better quality than we can ever before we are producing high grade low so for us oil 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 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. and that's why i am i'm very pro-business i'm very pro private sector because ultimately if you stop the game because your state companies have upped the game the private sector would 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 ones. this year a pretty good job a decision had no negative impact on consumer prices we 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 for their labor or the need for the produce more escape you. know he said to a very thanks to various studies conducted by organized nations such as the world bank or the united nations environment program we have been able to calculate that the cost of bringing these fuels to the european quality level would be very low i don't know when you would like to keep your two cents per liter of gasoline or diesel to suck him a barely true this into 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 to go to keep employment and also to go to post profits to just sell this who also make investments and generate employment elsewhere so even though you look up profit as money but that money is actually. 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 it's so who's been 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 and the second 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. organization 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 because they could and should begin delivering european quality to africa immediately in ukraine. 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 stand 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 own capitalism business model that is able to compete with them then we are at their mercy. he's trying to fight back she no longer wants to accept these bad fuels and watch the profits of the trading giant sanch now it would like to join in the dance in the hope of setting its own template.

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