Talk:Trafigura/Archives/2012

The Trafigura scandal with the Jamaican government

I am appealing to Jamaican Wikipedians to submit input based on articles from The Gleaner or The Jamaica Observer regarding the "Trafigura Scandal" in Jamaica. I got most of what I know about it from the radio or second-hand sources, so I have nothing concrete to cite.

Please, if you have access to newspaper articles, please mention it here! It is notable and it can be sourced! Respectfully, SamBlob 02:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Articles on Jamaica Scandal

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20061010/lead/lead2.html http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20080108t170000-0500_131190_obs_dutch_authorities_begin_probe_in_trafigura_donation.asp —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.184.43.165 (talk) 04:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

acid waste?

“ The newspaper states that the NFI determined that the contents of the tanker had been 528 thousand liter extremely acid waste ”

I thought the oil had been treated with caustic soda. Should this say "alkaline"? — Alan^✉ 00:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

You're, I've changed it, the leaked emails show that it had a ph of 13. Smartse (talk) 14:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

But the newspaper (and that is the source in this sentence) states that the contents was extremely acid. This sentence is currently not correctly displaying what the newspaper wrote.

attempt to gag UK press

Would someone care to write up Trafigura's attempt to prevent the Guardian from reporting on their toxic waste dumping practices? Information can be found at http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/5417651/british-press-banned-from-reporting-parliament-seriously.thtml but not, it seems, on the Guardian web site because of the gagging order... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.110.190.38 (talk) 10:14, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

You're most welcome to do just this. (The usual caveats: neutral point of view, reliable sources, etc.) See this short discussion. Here are four questions:

• Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the Court of Appeal judgment in May 2009 in the case of Michael Napier and Irwin Mitchell v Pressdram Limited in respect of press freedom to report proceedings in court.
• Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.
• Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if he will (a) collect and (b) publish statistics on the number of non-reportable injunctions issued by the High Court in each of the last five years.
• Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what mechanisms HM Court Service uses to draw up rosters of duty judges for the purpose of considering time of the essence applications for the issuing of injunctions by the High Court.

I hope that answers will somehow find their way out of the House of Commons. Hoary (talk) 10:28, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

BTW the 'Guido Fawkes identified...' bit in the article should probably read 'Guido Fawkes and others'. On twitter at least, he was scooped by about an hour by @dontgetfooled. (cf http://twitter.com/guidofawkes/status/4817666334 - Mon Oct 12 21:16:54 and http://twitter.com/dontgetfooled/statuses/4816538228 - Mon Oct 12 20:24:59). It was also discovered independently by Third Estate slightly later http://twitter.com/thethirdestate/status/4818593950 - Mon Oct 12 21:59:12. The timestamps are all in the source of those pages. 62.254.185.130 (talk) 11:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I've added the spectator article as a ref for the blogging/twitter spike. Please read WP:TWITTER it isn't a reliable source, the blog source shouldn't really be used either, now that the spectator have said the same thing it could be removed. If anyone has time the guardian's articles about Trafigura mentioned that they had already been gagged from reporting about them, which isn't currently mentioned. Smartse (talk) 11:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's the article I mentioned - this isn't anything new it would seem... Smartse (talk) 11:48, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Wikileaks is down

Since Wikileaks is down and probably will not be back up for a while, should those references be removed? These pages are still available via Google's cache. Sjoerd H (talk) 14:10, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

What's the point, wikileaks will be back up soon enough - it's not like the links will be dead permanently. If in a year they still aren't working then it might be worth removing them but for now it's not needed. Smartse (talk) 14:47, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

Compagnie Tommy

There is no independent confirmation that it was in fact a local sub-contracted company that dumped the waste so I am changing the section to include the fact that this is alleged only by Trafigura 92.20.123.20 (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I've read a lot of articles about this and haven't ever heard that before. I've removed the text you added as it was unsourced, if you have a reliable source which you can reference then please add the information back. I can't really see what difference it makes anyway - Trafigura should have checked that it was a reputable company before contracting them, the price they paid makes it pretty clear that it wasn't. Smartse (talk) 15:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

POV

Isn't there a bit too much focus on the scandals? Especially since at least the Ivory Coast one has its own article.-- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:13, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Maybe all the scandal stuff should be spun off into its own article? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 12:52, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe that while a seperate page is a good idea for an indepth article on the scandals they should also be mentioned briefly in a seperate section so that the information is not obscured by the change. NTheogen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.174.216.151 (talk) 15:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:19, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Splitting seems like a bad idea to me - how does that make it NPOV? Creating a separate article with scandal in the title is inherently POV - who has said that they are all scandals? It would be great if more could be added about the company, rather than the scandals, but from the research I've done before there isn't really much known about them. I guess that some of the Ivory Coast info could be moved to 2006 Côte d'Ivoire toxic waste dump but a lot of the information, like that regarding the gagging is related to the company, more so than the dumping. IMO it's best to keep everything here and ensure that it is written from a NPOV. Smartse (talk) 15:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the current article is that 90% of its content is criticising the company. Now I accept that they don't have a great reputation for behaving well, but its more than a little WP:UNDUE. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 15:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

UNDUE "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint, giving them "due weight"" - this supports what I just said - all that has been published about the company is about events where they are criticised and therefore this is going to make the bulk of the article. Making a separate article makes this worse. It should be entirely possible to make an article neutral, even if the sources are criticising the company anyway. This can be achieved by clean up rather than splitting though. Smartse (talk) 15:38, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

At the very least it needs two things: an initial summary of what the company does and where it is based, and then a summary/index of the scandals. There's no sense of what Trafigura does when it isn't having scandals and that makes the page feel like it is already only about the scandals. The page wasn't able to help me find out what its scope is, where its main businesses operate. It's more a question of quality rather than POV. Petrolmaps

If you can find sources to say what they do then please add information to the article. I found this from Business Week in 2005, but as the the subtitle "ultra-secretive network rules independent oil trading" suggests, finding information about Trafigura, other than problems appears to be very difficult. SmartSE (talk) 17:12, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

I also believe this article to be of very back quality, like one of those an English tabloids ranting about who sleeps with who. No company is 100% clean so get over it, make a small section if you want with the problems/scandals but not the whole article.

193.72.144.230 (talk) 16:21, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Why "London-based"?

I know the Grauniad says it's London-based, and some parts of the organisation are certainly located in London, but the Times calls it "Swiss-based" (see: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/sitesearch.do?querystring=trafigura&sectionId=342&p=tto&pf=all, for instance), and its headquarters are in Lucerne, which would seem to suggest that "Swiss-based" is more accurate HieronymousCrowley (talk) 15:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Fine by me. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 16:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

headquarters

according to this link (in german) the headquarters is in amsterdam, the netherlands.

http://www.hralu.ch/cgi-bin/fnrGet.cgi?fnr=1009016758&amt=100&lang=1&hrg_opt=11000&shab=0000000

--217.7.220.55 (talk) 11:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Untrustworthy

This article is OBVIOUSLY written by somebody harboring a deep personal grudge against Trafigura. What is it? Money? Women? Politics? It smells untrustworthy to the last letter; all those scandals and half-baked allegations. Just somebody couldn't stop ranting. If there were any truth to it, I tell you the Trafigura lawyers would have ripped it apart long ago.

So if there is at least SOMETHING true in those "scandals" the people responsible for this article are well advised to dim down the noise, put things in perspective and go about it much less fanatical.Hoppelpoppel (talk) 13:18, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about? There is undeniably SOMETHING true in those "scandals" - the majority of the article is well referenced and besides, not all of the information is against Trafigura - notice the referenced inclusion of the BBC's apology to Trafigura regarding incorrect accusations. You cannot have referenced information removed just because you happen to disagree with it. Be specific, what exactly do you have a problem with? Posting a generic complaint seemingly accusing other editor's of editing for personal gain (though what gain I cannot begin to imagine) is not constructive. Using your logic I could accuse you of posting that because you have a personal interest in ensuring nobody reports anything bad about Trafigura, no matter how reliable and established the source is. Freikorp (talk) 14:13, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome to join in the discussion above, but Freikorp is right to say that you need to be more specific. SmartSE (talk) 17:16, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Claude Dauphin

The link to Claude Dauphin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Dauphin) is incorrect. That is not the CD who runs Trafigura but someone with the same name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.115.50 (talk) 16:03, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out, I've changed the link to Claude Dauphin (businessman) so it no longer points there. SmartSE (talk) 16:13, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Removing events that are not notable or transient news

This article should not include news of passing transience. Additionally, it should not include information that is redundant and expounded upon at length in another article. The Wikipedia is NOT clearly explains that articles should not be merely repositories of transient news. It makes no sense, for example, to include a description of every possibly notable event in a company's history including changes in board of directors or even accidents. Read Glencore or Vitol, both rival firms, for an example of how the company's wikipedia page should conform. Both Glencore and Vitol have had many accidents in the past. In October 2010 for example, there was an explosion in Africa (Bakofeng Blast) that Glencore was involved in. Given that this was a relatively minor incident in the company's history, it does not constitute noteworthy news.

This content of the article should be factual and unbiased. Even if the events are factual, the selective inclusion of some facts or overemphasis on certain events is bias. It should not be the product of emotional attempts to vilify the company by digging up every single unfortunate accident in the company's history. The oil for food scandal lacks credible evidence -- the only article it cites only states that it should increase monitoring with regards to Trafigura's trading activities, not that Trafigura was found guilty. Additionally, the section cites conjecture about cooking up the scenario from a dubious party who had an incentive to pass the blame onto the company. This does not qualify as notable nor does it qualify as credible information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.47.195.30 (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

What part of Smartse's edit summary stating that severe changes should be discussed first did you not understand? Your edit is controversial and since you are the only one attempting to change the article the most constructive course of action is to reach a consensus here on the talk page with the other users rather than simply reverting everybody else's edits. I want to wait to hear what some of the editors more experienced with this page have to say before i add my two cents on the proposed section blanking. Freikorp (talk) 23:03, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Except you have yet to offer a compelling argument against the changes I have made or refuted any of my arguments. I reiterate that this article ought to be unbiased. Even if these are facts, overemphasis on certain events in the company's history is bias. I have gone through point by point explaining why each section is transient or not notable. Oil for food -- Trafigura was named in the case only calling for its activities to be further monitored. It was not accused or found guilty of wrongdoing. Hence, this is news is not significant.

Secondly, I have given examples of similar companies whose wiki pages are nowhere near as full with unorganized redundant information with dubious research. See Glencore and Vitol. You can search the net for examples of accidents in the past of these companies histories -- They deal in fuel, which is often volatile and yes flammable. Things happen.

Third, chemical explosion in Norway is not notable. What are the quantified impacts of this event besides the fact that the plant had to be shut down until it was rebuilt and inspected for safety? Casualty numbers? Severe environmental impact? Norway is a major oil and gas country -- do you honestly think they have had a pristine history with no fuel related accidents?

Fourth, information is redundant with the 2006 waste dumping in Cote D'Ivoire. Yes all the information related to Trafigura's activities belong there because they are all legal actions in the aftermath of that tragedy. I believe that a summary of the incident with a more neutral base of sources and reports is more than adequate for a page that is supposed to be about the COMPANY, NOT ABOUT THE INCIDENT.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.47.195.30 (talk) 13:31, 8 April 2011 (UTC) 

Sorry for my slow response, I have very poor internet access atm. As I've already mentioned above, I too of course agree that the article should be neutral and unbiased. Firstly, I think an important point to make is that Trafigura are mainly known for the Ivory Coast waste dumping incident and as a result WP:WEIGHT tells us that this should be covered in the article. As there is a main article, it is best to summarise the main article and include that here, as has been attempted already. The current summary however is certainly not neutral or unbiased: first most of it is referenced off a press release from Trafigura (hardly a neutral source!) and second, it paints Trafigura in a different light to the main article, making them sound squeaky clean. Does anyone have time to make a better job of it? I'm not sure about the oil-for-food and can't check the sources at the minute. I think the Norway incident should stay too - it certainly had significant enough coverage at the time and as with the IC incident, it's what Trafigura are known for. I've previously looked for other coverage to make the article less about accidents, but couldn't find anything - as they say themselves they are secretive! There's also now a problem with the IC incident article as text was copied + pasted incorrectly - can someone fix it up? Cheers SmartSE (talk) 16:24, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Trafigura is known for being the second largest metals trader and the third largest oil and gas trader worldwide. The current summary of the Ivory Coast incident is entirely factual -- what part of it reflects bias? We should not be looking to "paint" the company in any light. The fact that you would use this kind of phrasing suggests you yourself are passing judgment on this company. Trafigura is not PRIMARILY known for this incident -- yes it gained notoriety for this incident, but certainly this company was known before Probo Koala. You have yet to address the issue of redundancy of having the content replicated in two places. AGAIN, this is not about painting trafigura in any light, but about offering a non-biased factual account of what occurred. Finally, note that the sheer volume of information regarding information can be determined as bias. For example, if George Bush's page were all about the failures of the Iraq War, it would be a biased article, even if it is what he was primarily known for. Regarding Norway, I have already told you -- quantify the impact of the Norway incident especially within the context of Norway's history as an oil and gas nation. The existing article has details of the transaction but no description of what the impacts of this incident were. There were no reported casualties and no documented scientific evidence of what fumes were released in the air and how they might affect people. All you have is hearsay, which is not verifiable. Merely parroting the media is not creating encyclopedic. Encyclopedic information has to be VERIFIABLE based on solid evidence. Third, you have not responded to the fact that this company's page should conform with its competitors as they more or less can serve as a unbiased standard of what a company wiki page should look like. Go check out the Bakofeng Blast if you need something to spam about. Fourth, you have obviously not done a serious search for non Probo Koala related information about Trafigura. There is a wealth of information about Trafigura on their website including a 30 some odd page corporate brochure detailing their operations.

Please further note that WP:NOT is clearly a content guideline. "Content

In any encyclopedia, information cannot be included solely for being true or useful. Although there are debates about the encyclopedic merits of several classes of entries, consensus is that the following are good examples of what Wikipedia is not. The examples under each section are not intended to be exhaustive."

This article is clearly a list of transient news items. "While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion."

"Routine kinds of news events (including most crimes, accidents, deaths, celebrity or political news, "shock" news, stories lacking lasting value such as "water cooler stories," and viral phenomena) - whether or not tragic or widely reported at the time - are usually not notable unless something further gives them additional enduring significance."

"Diversity of sources Shortcut: WP:DIVERSE Significant national or international coverage is usually expected for an event to be notable. Wide-ranging reporting tends to show significance, but sources that simply mirror or tend to follow other sources, or are under common control with other sources, are usually discounted. Wikipedia's general notability guideline recommends that multiple sources be provided to establish the notability of a topic, not just multiple references from a single source.[2] A series of news reports by a single newspaper or news channel would not be sufficient basis for an article. Media channels under common control or influence are usually counted as one local or national outlet and a single instance of coverage when they report a matter, even if they have several regional or national outlets. Similarly, where a single story or press release is simply re-reported (often word-for-word) by news publications, or when reporters base their information on repeating news coverage from elsewhere (for example, "AP reported that ..."), this should only be counted as a single source for the purpose of determining notability (see Wikipedia:Bombardment). Derivative reports and reports under common control cannot be used to verify each other, nor does mere repetition necessarily show the kind of effort that is good evidence of a significant matter."

"Duration of coverage Shortcuts: WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE WP:PERSISTENCE Notable events usually receive coverage beyond a relatively short news cycle. The duration of coverage is a strong indicator of whether an event has passing or lasting significance. Although notability is not temporary, meaning that coverage does not need to be ongoing for notability to be established, a burst or spike of news reports does not automatically make an incident notable. Events that are only covered in sources published during or immediately after an event, without further analysis or discussion, are likely not suitable for an encyclopedia article. " —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.48.154.103 (talk) 17:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello there, while it is nice of you to quote our policy, could you be more specific in your concerns as to which exact sections are not notable?

1. UK Parliamentary debates/Super-injunction (example:Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme:

“ To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura. ”

)

2. Oil-for-food. Well this was a UN report and not a press article.

3. Norway explosion, A sequel in the semi-local media. http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vest_Tank-ulykken

Personally I would think it's not really the notability that is the issue.--Alcea setosa (talk) 21:37, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Read the UN Report -- It doesn't find Trafigura guilty of any wrong doing. It just says its activities ought to be monitored. There was no conclusive evidence of what their findings were. If you are able to link to a third party NGO (mass media is dubious) that has done conclusive research about Trafigura's link, this issue would be different. Norway I have already explained that you need to quantify the impact of the explosion in order for it to be notable. There were no casualties associated with the incident. Furthermore, you would need to contextualise this event within Norway's history as an oil and gas and chemical refinement nation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.51.239.136 (talk) 12:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I am all for context, and you are able and most welcome to contribute this yourself, but this http://www.nrk.no/programmer/tv/brennpunkt/1.6816347 http://www.nrk.no/programmer/tv/brennpunkt/1.6816347 does not seem like such a minor explosion(especially if you consider that they were trying to neutralise toxic waste when it happened.http://www.nrk.no/programmer/tv/brennpunkt/1.6104693). Trafigura claimed it cost 70 million NOK to clean up (see second link) and it took 900 days to.--Alcea setosa (talk) 01:00, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Updated earnings for 2011

Seems the events of the last 2 years have done little to stop growth from Trafigura, see recent Reuters article on their profits and earnings for 2011:

http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111218/bs_nm/us_trafigura_earnings

Possibly someone with more editing ability than me would like to amend the opening paragraph to reflect this, think it is worth showing that their critical press and questionable record has only led to triple digit growth in the past 12 months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.138.20.10 (talk) 01:05, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Toxic Truth

Hi All! There is a text about some toxic waste by this company, you may could use it. Toxic truh Hi Bokorember (talk) 12:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Removing "neutrality disputed" tag

On 6 September 2012 this edit by an anonymous IP tagged this article as POV / neutrality disputed. However:

• this editor/IP did not contribute to this talk page, before or after this edit and hence did not attempt to discuss or resolve any issues he/she has with the article, or to even explain why she/he deemed this tag necessary.
• this editor/IP only ever contributed 2 edits to WP: one defacing this article, one to place the POV template. No attempt to contribute to or improve the article.

Hence, I am removing the Template:POV as a case of drive-by-tagging. Superp (talk) 20:55, 5 October 2012 (UTC)