this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Mixing cheap chemical waste into marine fuel is extremely lucrative, but also illegal. For mixing waste with crude marine oil from Curaçao, the management of a large Antwerp oil bunkering company is facing three years in prison and a financial penalty of almost 3.7 million euros. To make their move, they also enlisted the help of a cabinet member of then Flemish environment minister Joke Schauvliege (CD&V).
A proud, already somewhat elderly duo will stand before a Belgian judge in the spring of 2023. The woman has dressed up nicely, the man tightly in a suit: they are determined to convince the court that they have done nothing wrong.
According to the man, there has been a misunderstanding. "I would appreciate a ruling soon," he says. "This case has been going on for 10 years now. I can't sell my business."
The two are not the typical figures you would associate with a criminal organization. Yet they are suspected of being the masterminds behind a serious environmental crime. An international case that begins on the other side of the ocean: in the Netherlands Antilles.
In the middle of Curaçao, near Willemstad, lies a large bay. Once there must have been beautiful mangrove forests - an endangered ecosystem - whose aerial roots protruded above the surface of the water, but they are long gone. The far end of the bay has been an "ecological disaster area" for more than seventy years.
What is the real impact of the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam on the environment, public health and society in general? In the coming months, Apache and the Dutch Follow the Money are conducting research into the (petro)chemical industry in Europe's two largest ports.
At the end of World War II, Shell processed crude oil from Venezuela in Curaçao's Buskabaai into kerosene for the planes used by Allied troops to cross the ocean. Residues from that refining were dumped in a mangrove and eventually hidden under a layer of asphalt.
Dutch police investigations showed that the melted asphalt from remediator Asphalt Lake Recovery was also diluted with waste
In the mid-1960s, Shell left the site. The company sold the refinery to the Curaçao government for the symbolic sum of one euro, thus absolving itself of the responsibility to clean up its own mess. Since 2006, Asphalt Lake Recovery has been remediating the 52-hectare Asphalt Lake.
The lake has been excavated since 2010. The viscous goo released in the process is melted at a high temperature. This goo still has calorific value and can therefore be used as fuel. To serve as marine fuel, it must be diluted, but that is still better than pumping new oil. Not only fuel merchants benefit, is the idea, but also the environment.
The story was presented in the local press as a success: the people of Curaçao are dreaming aloud of a Green Town on the most polluted spot on their island, with new homes and a marina set in greenery. The remediation is being announced with catchy titles like Black drab becomes fuel.
Connection to Antwerp
This blending of fuels is, of course, regulated. But those regulations are complex and the fuel market is organized internationally. Moreover, stricter requirements on sulfur emissions make the search for cheap diluents increasingly attractive.
How does chemical waste from Antwerp end up half a world away in Curaçao?
It is a multi-billion dollar business, in which parties search for the boundaries and regularly cross them, an earlier Follow the Money publication from 2022 showed.
A Dutch police investigation revealed that the melted asphalt from remediation company Asphalt Lake Recovery was diluted not only with lighter petroleum - the usual diluent - but also with locally collected used lubricating oil from garages and shipping waste oil collected in the Antilles. Waste, in other words.
The researchers found something else: residual products from the Antwerp petrochemical industry. How does chemical waste from Antwerp end up half a world away on Curaçao? The link turned out to be not far off: Asphalt Lake Recovery is almost half owned by Christian K., manager of the Antwerp bunker operator Oilchart, which also operates in the Netherlands.
The case came to a head in 2017. Because of the link to Belgium, Rotterdam's functional prosecutor's office halfway through called in the help of the Antwerp prosecutor's office.
'Cura mess'
Poor quality bunker oil leads to many more pollutant emissions. It is also disastrous for marine engines. A skipper told Follow the Money in 2022 that bad oil caused problems with the main engine of the ship he was working on.
Not an immediate problem, the crew thought. But more than a week later, still on the high seas, they realized things were really bad. "At that point we had already consumed about two-thirds of our fuel. When we went to take a look, we saw that the steel parts of the engine were chemically eaten away."
Despite the obvious damage caused by their work, it is difficult to really firmly punish fraudulent fuel mixers.
The Asphalt Lake scandal brought Oilchart director Christian K. and co-director Sonja V. before the criminal court in Antwerp's Butterfly Palace in late April. "There is no question of recycling," stated a sharp prosecutor. "One scrambles waste."
The company and its management must answer for three shipments from Curaçao to Antwerp. They are suspected of violating European and Flemish regulations regarding the transport of waste materials, and of participating in a criminal organization.
In intercepted telephone conversations, the directors spoke to each other about "junk," "processing junk," and "Cura junk," according to the prosecutor's office. A correspondence between the shareholders and a Curaçao minister shows, according to the prosecution, that V. and K. were aware that they were processing waste materials as if they were raw materials.
In a two-hour substantiation of the penalty sentence, the Antwerp prosecutor painted a picture of "fairly extensive and complexly organized international waste shipments in the bunker oil sector." She also spoke of "organized international environmental fraud" and accused the defendants of having been in no way transparent about the composition of the asphalt and diluent.
For the prosecution, the motives can be summed up in two terms: profit and securing investments.
Cabinet-Schauvliege
The Lake Asphalt case is primarily a case about whether something is a "commodity" or a "waste. That discussion has been going on at Oilchart for some time. In 2014, both the Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM) and the Belgian environmental inspection already came up with a clear verdict: Oilchart processed waste in its marine fuel.
But the company did not give in. It took a chance with Hugo Geerts, the then deputy chief of cabinet of Flemish Environment Minister Joke Schauvliege (CD&V).
That overruled the judgment of both environmental authorities. Geerts, a waste policy expert with both a past at the public waste company and a private waste processor, ruled single-handedly that Oilchart was importing "raw materials" and not "waste materials.
According to the attorney, Oilchart deliberately did not conduct a procedure to obtain a raw material declaration (which establishes that a substance is a raw material), the attorney further indicated. "One was not transparent in any way about the composition of the asphalt and solvents. Instead, they tried to mislead the controlling authorities. The office of the minister in charge was called in to overrule the controlling authorities."
"Following correct procedure was not the strategy, neither was supplying quality bunker oil." For the prosecution, it is clear why that commodity declaration was never applied for. "The application should have identified the imported material," it sounded. "Oilchart should also provide an overview of the production process with description of the input streams."
Geerts' intervention in the discussion between Oilchart and the Flemish government brought him into the sights of justice in 2017.
In October 2018, investigators from the Judicial Police searched his office because the prosecution suspected that Geerts had been bribed. Geerts was ultimately not prosecuted because no evidence of corruption was found. Nevertheless, the Flemish government asked the criminal court to award moral damages, as the aggrieved party. "Good faith was outsmarted," the Flemish government argued.
Vague regulations?
International regulations do not make it easy for inspection agencies to check for tampering with blending agents. While marine fuel must meet international standards, there are no ISO standards for the "diluents" used to arrive at that marine fuel.
Oilchart management defends itself by arguing that there is no 'blacklist' of unauthorized diluents. They also believe that the four criteria have been met to receive the so-called end-of-waste status. This means that the substances are no longer waste because they have become products (for example, after recycling).
Neither OVAM nor the environmental inspectorate is convinced of this. Moreover, OVAM noted that Oilchart did not clarify the diluent the company used.
"Very diverse diluents are used in the bunker world, seeking to minimize costs," OVAM wrote in correspondence with the Schauvliege administration. "There are indications that quite a few bunker companies are using waste streams as diluents for lucrative reasons."
The older duo behind Oilchart still brings in the extenuating circumstance of having a clean criminal record in Belgium. That does not apply in the Netherlands, however. In 2017, the Rotterdam District Court convicted the company of collecting shipping waste without a permit and transporting non-usable fuel oil to Belgium. This verdict was upheld by the court in 2018 and by the Supreme Court in 2020.
The oil trader was fined 30,000 euros.