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Trafigura. Trafigura is a Swiss owned, London-based multinational commodities and oil trained corporation with annual revenues in 2009 of $73 billion, and net profits of $404 million. It is the largest independent company training commodities in the world today. Probo Koala.
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Trafigura • Trafigura is a Swiss owned, London-based multinational commodities and oil trained corporation with annual revenues in 2009 of $73 billion, and net profits of $404 million. It is the largest independent company training commodities in the world today.
Probo Koala • This is the name of a tanker chartered in 2006 by Trafigura which was based in the Mediterranean Sea as a floating processing plant to purify a cargo of low-grade gasoline known as ‘coker naphtha’ which had been purchased from a Mexican refinery. Caustic soda and a chemical catalyst were added to “wash” the coker naphtha to produce sellable petroleum.
The content of the waste • The waste includes tons of phenols which can cause death by contact, tons of hydrogen sulphide, lethal if inhaled in high concentrations, and vast quantities of corrosive caustic soda and mercaptans which John Hoskins describes as "the most odorous compounds ever produced".
Actual illegal dumping • It happened on 19 August 2006 in the dead of night. A convoy of trucks from a newly-formed company in Abidjan arrived to take the waste away. They illegally dumped the first loads at the huge tip in Aquedo. Watch Newsnight's 2007 investigation into claims toxic waste was dumped in Ivory Coast A powerful stench soon engulfed the area. The tip's operators were called out and the drivers sent packing. They looked elsewhere to drop the waste, tipping it in at least 18 places across the city and beyond.
BBC and Trafigura According to a September 2009 UN report, the dumping drove 108,000 people in the Ivory Coast to seek medical attention.Trafigura and their lawyers Carter Ruck had been pursuing an ongoing libel case against the BBC over a news story from on the case that aired in May 2009
Censoring stories in the United Kingdom • Trafigura and Carter Ruck have become notorious for their willingness to use the UK's repressive media laws to suppress legitimate criticism and comment. A number of other UK media have already been bullied into censoring stories about this case, but until now the BBC had stood firm. Unfortunately it appears that even the UK's world-renowned public service broadcaster has now been muzzled by a rich corporation seeking to use the law to cover up the truth about its activities.
Response in the European Union A Dutch court Friday upheld a $1.3 million criminal fine for oil trading company Trafigura in the Amsterdam part of a hazardous waste drama that allegedly left 15 people dead and sickened thousands more in Ivory Coast in 2006. The Amsterdam Appeals Court judgment reinforces a 2010 lower court ruling that found the company illegally instructed the ship Probo Koala to leave the Netherlands with toxic waste in July 2006 after deciding it would be cheaper to dispose of it elsewhere.
Minton Report/Conclusions 9.3 The compounds listed above are capable of causing severe human health effects through inhalation and ingestion. These include headaches, breathing difficulties, nausea, eye irritation, skin ulceration, unconsciousness and death. There would also be a strong and unpleasant odour over a large area. All of these were as reported in this incident
Lessons of the Trafigura case • International Law is weak • Rich corporations can use their power and influence to coerce • It is cheaper to dump toxic waste than it is to dispose of it safely • If Trafigura had not stopped in the European Union they likely would’ve never have been sanctioned
