For years the Amstelveen-based oil trader Trafigura has been threatening journalists with legal action if they publish stories about the company's involvement in the dumping of hazardous waste. The journalists were faced with accusations of libel, but it has now been established that Trafigura did not have clean hands.
Trafigura, which mainly operates from London, has now come to the conclusion that it made more mistakes than it had previously been prepared to admit. On Thursday it suddenly announced an offer to pay compensation to around 30,000 people in Ivory Coast who say they suffered health problems as a result of the dumping of hazardous waste in the capital Abidjan in 2006. The company had already paid the Ivory Coast government 100 million pounds as compensation for the victims. According to the Ivory Coast authorities at least ten people died as a result of exposure to the toxic sludge. Greenpeace says 15 died.A report on the case published on Wednesday by Okechukwu Ibeanu, special rapporteur on the UN human rights council, concludes "there seems to be strong prima facie evidence that the reported deaths and adverse health consequences are related to the dumping".
Trafigura expected to make a profit
So far Trafigura has always denied that it is legally liable for what happened in Abidjan where a local company took over the Trafigura waste and dumped it in 18 places around the city in August 2006. According to a company spokesman, the material dumped was "completely harmless".
The accusations against Trafigura concern the poisonous waste product from quantities of sulphur-contaminated gasoline which the company bought at a bargain price from the Mexican oil trader Pemex. Trafigura expected to make a profit by extracting the valuable elements and selling them on. However, the cheap method of processing the contaminated gasoline used by Trafigura released a toxic sludge. Which is why this method is banned in many countries.
Trafigura chartered the freighter Probo Koala for the processing and had the gasoline treated on board the ship off the coast of Gibraltar. In June 2006 the company tried to have the waste reprocessed in Amsterdam by pretending it was non-hazardous waste from cleaning oil tanks. But the toxic condition of the waste was discovered in time. It could have been reprocessed in the Netherlands, but Trafigura did not like the high price and gave orders for the sludge to be pumped back into the Probo Koala. A legal case is still pending against Trafigura in the Netherlands.
Company president knew what was going on
The ship then made a futile journey to Estonia and then to Nigeria, both of which refused to take the waste. It was finally accepted in Ivory Coast by a company with no experience with this kind of waste. The manager, Solomon Ugborugbo, has already been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In internal Trafigura emails leaked on Thursday by Greenpeace it appears that senior staff were alluding in early 2006 to the dumping in Africa of toxic waste, referred to by them as "slops" or "shit". They also appeared aware of the potential dangers. "This method of processing contaminated gasoline is no longer allowed in the European Union, the US and Singapore", according to one email which also says that the waste is "outlawed in most countries because of its toxic elements".
The emails also show that the head of Trafigura Claude Dauphin, despite protestations to the contrary, knew what was going on. He gave the order for a "creative" solution for the toxic sludge.
