US adds some Chinese companies to sanctions list

The US Treasury Department announced on May 8 that it would further tighten sanctions on Iranian oil exports, adding a refinery in China’s Hebei Province and a three-port terminal company in Shandong Province to the sanctions list. These companies have purchased or facilitated the transportation of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Iranian crude oil in violation of US sanctions on Iran.

According to a statement from the US Treasury Department, China is the largest buyer of Iranian oil. The factories and companies on the sanctions list have become an important route for Iranian crude oil exports. This action is the third time the US has imposed sanctions on Chinese oil refineries. It is reported that this sanction decision has begun to prevent other large Chinese oil refineries from purchasing crude oil from Iran.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said at a press conference: “As part of President Trump’s largest pressure campaign, the Treasury Department today imposed sanctions on another oil refinery that imports crude oil from Iran. “We are determined to further deprive the Iranian regime of its oil revenues and prevent them from undermining its stable agenda,” he said.

The US State Department also stressed in a statement: “The United States will hold Iran and all its partners accountable for using oil revenues to fund destabilizing behavior.”

It is understood that Iran’s oil exports have long relied on the transportation of a group of oil tankers known as the “Shadow Fleet,” which evade international oversight by using seaborne shipping, falsifying ship registrations, and disabling automatic identification systems.