Million Euro Fine for Dumping Oil Sludge Off Ivory Coast

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 30 July 2010

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EW News Desk Team

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30 July 2010

A Dutch court recently imposed the maximum fine of 1 million Euros, or $1.28 million,

on the oil trading company Trafigura for illegally exporting highly toxic sludge that ended up dumped in Ivory Coast.

The stinking waste was eventually linked to the deaths of 16 people and thousands of illnesses in 2006.

The court also found the company guilty of covering up the hazardous nature of the waste when it first tried to unload its unusually toxic slops,

which included high levels of caustic soda, sulfur compounds and hydrogen sulfide, in the port of Amsterdam.

The nauseating sludge was pumped back on board after the company balked at treatment costs, and the ship, the Probo Koala, left with its load.

The ship then headed to Ivory Coast, where the sludge was dumped in several areas of Abidjan, the capital.

Trafigura has denied wrongdoing, but in separate settlements it paid $200 million to the Ivory Coast for clean-up

and $50 million to close to 30,000 victims and their families.

The ruling of the Amsterdam court marks the first time Trafigura has been criminally convicted in the sludge scandal.

Another criminal lawsuit in the case is still before a court in The Hague, according to this article in the New York Times.


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