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.