US Imposes Fourth Round of Sanctions against Iran Oil Exports
“The United States is committed to cutting off the revenue streams that enable Tehran’s continued financing of terrorism and development of its nuclear program,” Bessent said.
WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) - The U.S. Treasury Department, as well as the State Department, announced on Thursday that the Trump administration was imposing a new set of sanctions targeting a network that facilitates covert Iranian oil exports.
It is the fourth such measure announced since President Donald Trump took office two months ago, as his second term began.
The State Department stressed the centrality of this policy to the Trump administration. Trump has issued only two National Security Presidential Memoranda (NSPM) and one concerns Iran.
NSPM-2, which was published on February 4, is focused on, as its subject line states, “Imposing Maximum Pressure on the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Denying Iran All Paths to a Nuclear Weapon, and Countering Iran’s Malign Influence.”
The new set of sanctions targets a network of companies and vessels linked to China’s import of oil from Iran. Chinese “purchases of Iranian oil provide the primary economic lifeline for the Iranian regime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror,” Scott Bessent, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, explained in announcing the new sanctions.
“The United States is committed to cutting off the revenue streams that enable Tehran’s continued financing of terrorism and development of its nuclear program,” he stated.
The Treasury Department announcement, as well as a parallel statement issued by State Department Spokesperson Tammy Bruce, suggest that ships linked to Yemen’s Houthis, who are backed by Iran, are involved in transporting Tehran’s covert oil exports.
Sanctioned Individual, Entities, and Vessels
The new sanctions target 14 companies, both refinery and shipping businesses. Nine of the companies are based in China or Hong Kong; two are based in Panama, with one in Liberia, another in the Virgin Islands, and a third in the Seychelles, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa.
The head of one of the sanctioned Chinese companies, Shandong Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical Company, was also sanctioned.
The Treasury Department described the company as a “teapot refinery.” Teapot refineries, as the State Department explained, “are private Chinese refineries that are the primary purchasers of Iranian oil.” The State Department also noted that this was the first U.S. designation for sanctions of such a teapot refinery.
As the Treasury Department explained, the teapot refinery, Luqing Petrochemical, “has purchased millions of barrels of Iranian oil worth approximately half a billion dollars.”
“Luqing Petrochemical received Iranian oil transported by shadow fleet vessels, some of which have been sanctioned for their role transporting Iranian petroleum linked to the Houthis and MODAFL [Ministry of Defense of Armed Forces Logistics],” it added.
“Iranian crude oil is transported to teapot refineries via a ‘shadow fleet’ of vessels that usually engage in deceptive shipping practices,” including the manipulation of their automatic identification systems, the Treasury Department explained.
Eight ships in the shadow fleet were sanctioned. Three are flagged in Panama; two are flagged in Barbados, while one flies the flag of the Comoros Islands, another that of San Marino, and the eighth ship is not even flagged.
