would you say those four. on now it is safe to say it was a bad day at work for one valet car driver in australia but at least he survived he accidentally parked his soft top porsche directly under or be a call outside of a hotel in sydney's drawling harbor driver had to be cut out of the car by the police but he was able to walk away unharmed the porsche though was not as lucky. while you're watching the news we have more coming up at the top of the hour my colleague will be joining you i'm sorry kelly in berlin i'd like to thank you so much for watching and have to see you can see. the whole g w one. for the global insights the news

out for local heroes. d.w. made for mines. west africa and. why. west africa is selling off each good crude oil and why only. 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. to the.

official representatives and several v.i.p.'s have accepted the invitation of. the focus. of. the media here as well. because it's us who can be assured to go but it's. so dark but i figured here i think. we're going to live you know it's. the minister of transport is officially inaugurating several kerosene tanks delegated near the airport so this will make refueling more efficient it's a strategic move for ghana which aims to become the rising star in the region please please go visit my mission. meanwhile the p.r. visit is going ahead at full speed. the next stop this brand

new filling station in puma energy. who now owns forty one service stations in guyana that might not seem a lot but the company is very ambitious. they were going to do for united service station. that said bring me in fuel. critics i have a chance to come back passed by. i just got show they have clean fuel to do it go big go it would help if it was zero but. what could he say this is a good. clean the facts may be but the fuel itself the sulfur level is the issue it's measured in p.p.m. parts per million countries decide their limits individually in europe it's ten ppm for diesel for example jannah 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 but yes so you're aware of that absolutely this is true for many african countries and even if you were to look at a very large market like south africa the standards here are higher than elsewhere . in ghana the highest level allowed is three thousand people yeah that's a lot so yes that's a lot it poses a health problem so for the problem of 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. raiders have

a deliberate strategy clearly 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 in return for the the truth from the start of. it all that is perfectly legal so as a profit yes it is perfectly legal within the permissible limits. 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 accusations the investigation by the ngo public eye focuses on swiss based crude oil traders like traffic who are whose african subsidiaries puma energy as well as vittorio whose partners in africa vivo energy and shell china traffic orders revenue is close to one hundred billion dollars a year its net income is reportedly two point six billion the choice of an

extremely heavy weight 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 for example. it is hardly known about swiss companies trading in oil are present at all levels. producing 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. right now is mark in france with. their. these are all for this one. here. in the course of his investigation visited petrol stations and took reference sample from the pumps in asia 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 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. if you don't want to 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 aren't 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 they're only answerable to themselves. for 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 instead 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 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 to. the police who are redefining trade in africa who they feel good nicholas on a freak response was look at. the toll and evil energy both respects and comply with the regulations of any jurisdiction in which they operate. under. regulations it is not possible for be told to directly

supply vivo energy with petroleum products in vivo energy is obliged to purchase products from a bulk distribution company and the products available from these companies comply with 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. in the middle is a good one if they say that that's a. new. move

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. they are the company that i have heard it on my back. 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 the call that they are big. huge volumes to go on all right we are very dependent on the.

services and i have to see them being significantly professional glenn called you are british petroleum also here if they are investing in ghana it means that it's good business as. it goes business so that influence has been very very very positive traffic guru i think some ten years ago made about a fifty. dollar investment in that facility that enabled us to get. in seen and get. some pipelines. this is a fine example of the presence of these morning platforms some of. the main deepwater seaports capital traffic built them in two thousand and six. names of security puma energy gunna manage. this infrastructure

a lot of large vessels drawing more than ten meters to one load their oil products without having to talk. very critical. about the. stream to making products available so that has been constructive i mean for us. 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 spots. one of the. those that are lower than in the world the worst one that is not the worst it's not the worst.

thousand ppm i say yeah right ok very bad it's not great. it's not great three thousand ppm is not great greece look great it's a discussion that we are hard last year and he said discussion that we think should translate to reaction in the coming. in the meantime keep on coughing the sulfur dioxide from exhaust fumes is everywhere it's direct influence on our small risk their entry infections and even cardiovascular diseases has been known for a long time recently the w.h.o. has confirmed between sulfur dioxide levels and lung cancer. so why did gonna continue to stick to the three thousand ppm standard for diesel i would like to talk to judith's please as it stands up executive director is it possible thank you. we're trying to get an answer from the canadian authorities.

and is it you didn't. know. she's not here and is a doctor. able to talk to him. he's busy judith's has already all the details we sent it remains to print the letter and we just need to reach the director of the help least so this is quite it thank you for your help. it's complicated so we try a new tack even if. it is the belief. that the belief that the fitness it it'll eat in the. human energy to traffic or a subsidiary is holding an opening ceremony in one of the fanciest hotels in

a cramped. the program says several high ranking officials are attending and it's true the oil minister himself is here in good company. says this is a very. poor. thank you. sir. thank.

you just as the minister is leaving we try to get an interview. with you. he said. ok. you did let me. out. something. about. number of. things so. we had hoped to get an in-depth interview in a quiet place to hear his arguments about the quality of fuel at the pumps and the

potential responsibility of swiss companies in the sale of dirty products in his country but this was often asked at last meeting. the public eye report reveals that it all fits into a very well thought out business model. 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. he is 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. the next in line is kerosene farah claims followed by diesel the other main fuel for cars and trucks next come domestic heating fuel for generators and basically oil and finally the heavy fuels. trading companies by these heavy fuels that low prices then just like in the kitchen recipe they add components that. 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 in a legal manner found a subset of blending itself is legal. and what's illegal is mixing waste into the products to ward off a waste must be properly disposed of and not mixed into other substances meant that on the stove. is a prosecutor in rotterdam she's a member of the undone 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 pressure called 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 sixty come. the problem is that this procedure is so complex that nobody has really mastered it some companies take advantage of this a fact not lost on the lawyer. have a nice perspective from the home tab for us from the point of view of criminal lawyers reach is a challenge. it's not only legally but also chemically complex complex can we talk about. we suspect some companies are using the reach directive to turn waste into products reach their how

to off the best 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 the stuff of us having article. and well today jeanne. this is how they doubled their profits. if the waste isn't disposed of by an approved disposal company which 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 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 expenses 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 then is it possible to do that it's legal. yeah look yes it is possible for example to produce a product in the netherlands that contains too much of something that can't be used here but which can be sold in asia or africa of africa. there's no ethical problem with that. the commentators 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. 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 provo koala scandal what was the massive tanker chartered by the swiss company trafigura 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 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 that it's a day decided to dump it stressed africa how much how much expense i think of us around half a million dollars that i have to pay and photographic wise to long enough.

to talk sic waste was intrusted to a small ivory coast business the disposed of it by any means possible. the health consequences were enormous four hundred thousand dive or eons fell ill seventeen people died of points and in. less than a year later the swiss company traffic who are entered into negotiations with the ivorian 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 trophy 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. neither. the state of ivory coast nor traffic. except in the liability for the events which happened last august and the need to demean element to these agreement is to help the state of ivory coast financially but the president spoke tonight a bit on television and clearly so we have to. have. except 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 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 or fifty thousand dive orian victim's father class

action suit against traffic in the netherlands the proceedings are still on going. public and i discovered that before cleaning its tanks program koala carried out low quality fuel blending the ngos investigation showed that the whole process was systematic. lending is very common and legal but what is illegitimate in our eyes is if you blend if you mix and you make a product that is of better quality but you make it on purpose for 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 in the part of amsterdam but also in a part of contraire but also on board tankers it is. at the business model that's actually focused on making a lot of profit. the public eye ex-pat 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. valid to the reasons why it's such a big is because it pass ten refineries in the area and best self storage capacity. arabs it also has a very strategic position for the west coast of africa so that's why you also see that. order the ports in west africa for the health it's coming from the outreach or. there's no official information and it's also a very secretive trading industry and also the terminals don't want to disclose the clients to which they're renting or take. in the netherlands

a little known longer allow citizens to demand lists of any dangerous substances stored by a company money at a patiently invoked this law for each terminal in amsterdam. sometimes they don't want to make copies so i just see it but i can 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 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 because like this too to know it depends a little bit are how big to take correspondence 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 them 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 or mission or roads and small roads but it makes the blending or the logic very efficient so yeah ok so in each pipeline you have different products yes ok and of could be there. two tankers are actually commuting they got a jetty to jetty out. and maybe did them if they would be commuting a day 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 waiting along because. we asked 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 do you still want to call brutus and not a light they just came from the us but we see that they regularly trades with west africa to look may or to largo's nigeria. money had to has downloaded an app on her phone that allows her to monitor the shipping traffic in ports around the world including amsterdam. and orders the little spot the records are actually means so you can see there's a lot of takers and we are here you can see the protests is here so let's let's see what they actually about the information they get so to get from the picture of to the ship say it's a crude oil tanker many times you can see the lack of little bits the fessor tracks

where the strip has been and then you can see it's the flag of the tankers from the hammer since two hundred thirty meters length or more since imports ok but nothing about the owner of the people that grants them that it's very difficult is to find out that it was actually renting that tanker and 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 though it's says shipping intelligent database where you have to. pay for as well so it's that but it's the only way to get some more information about it. that's all we learned but public guy had access to this information. was this which companies maybe a dozen smaller ones but also like the big ones like. it's curious are very big in this business model actually they're very good at it they are very good in

creating this very bad quality fuels. and it is because they are present all of the supply chain so they have started to capacity in strategic locations in many different places they even have refineries they even have to have access to hundreds of tankers so they are able to collect all those different intermediate products and to use it whenever it's most profitable for them and they can earn much a lot of money with it. there is something else most of the west african countries have crude oil deposits they even have refineries. and this is another thing public eye has shed light on. the other works 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 write us at odds with the us. why does a country like ghana imported bad fuels if it has good quality crude oil and even its own refinery that's in the so we. have to wrap it in. the good news. the good news is that this time we'll be able to ask directly why the refinery doesn't supply government 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 to any sell 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 could have been 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 the youth all the imports that we've done we finished refining our first million barrels we made a decent profit on it our second million barrels is currently what is being run at the moment and we've booked our third cargo so the only thing it's working well the old lady is working well but she's going to get better because there are certain

adjustments that we have to make that are being made so that all it is doing well and she's going to get better that's the official position of the government of ghana everything is fine but then you who see who represents the interests of the importance including a swiss trading companies is frankly doubtful about the state refineries chances. politicians him up you know i'm not great businessman why can't miss 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 profits you look at putting viability your thing at the margins when you have businessman i think about competition when you're in the business man the point is not think about competition in terms of business it's about competition in terms of votes the two of them not the same ok so a refinery is real business and it's would be viable when government takes its self

out of it it will also be viable where we have swiss investors with all that you can do you want to be investing in refineries in ghana. the refinery produces forty five thousand barrels a day not bad for a moribund operation and surprise surprise it produces good quality fuels to the chagrin of the importance or frankly the truth is that the refined products we make here are better quality than we can ever 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. 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 it can't 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. they made this fuel depleted to the decision had no negative impact on consumer prices we have has no reduction in tax revenues or government subsidies is only simply manage to limit the profits of the traders who were supplying inferior products or so for their neighbors the need for the produce more escaped. their

essential purely a very francs to various studies conducted by organizations such as the world bank or the united nations environment program we have been able to calculate the cost of bringing these fuels up to the european quality level would be very low i don't know when you would like a thing or two cents per liter of gasoline or diesel to suck human missiles two cents per lisa surely the swiss companies could try a bit harder. look take take all the swiss guys who would do this in form on e. everybody needs to make profits do you want to keep employment and also to go to post profits to just shelled us who also make investments to 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 don't think it's a bet at some point i think it's all the solution agree with you it has to be done so. the politics are what's going on 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 it's look and if they decide to keep the quality no you can't blame the businessman i think the last of 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 ice is things aren't quite as simple as that. organising these are but there is a well organized lobby of fuel importers in ghana you know in this sector there are

often conflicts of interest between politicians and their entourage which interferes in business or in the effects they are often directly or indirectly themselves owners of importing companies are going to not want this to be known so they try to obscure what are 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 then you wait until you are going to treat it. as none of this is illegal the only pressure the n.-g. o. can bring to bear is to question the reputation of swiss trading companies but will they can. on the african side 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 all the more arguments all the good things that should be done cannot be done because if you. don't put yourself into a place where you can compete. there's no way you're going to survive because charity is a very risky business but this was trading companies they are not doing charity often on truck no they're not doing charity off a long trip and they are exactly coming from this capitalist model as you say they are 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 fight back no longer wants to accept these bad fuels and watch the profits of the trading giant savage now each would like to join in the dance in the

hope of setting its own template. lawyer. culture. hair. superman.

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this whole. place we must forge please. play. the german every move w a. player . plays. this is news coming to you live from ukraine comes under fire for. death and accusing russia of his my twenty four hours after he was reported shot dead of.

alive ukraine says the move forward trimmed and ordered not to plot against. also coming up. russian foreign minister sergey lavrov has met kim jong un on a trip to pyongyang is the first time media has met with a.