US hits Iran’s oil minister and shadow fleet with sanctions

Tehran: The Trump administration is imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil minister, as well as targeting more companies and vessels linked to the “shadow fleet” that Tehran uses to circumvent sanctions.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Thursday added to its list of “Specially Designated Nationals” Mohsen Paknejad, who as minister of petroleum “oversees the export of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil and has allocated billions of dollars’ worth of oil to Iran’s armed forces for export,” according to a Treasury statement.

The action is based on a January 2020 executive order in which President Donald Trump imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors, and marks the third round of sanctions since the president’s February 4 national security memorandum imposing a “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran.

The Treasury Department identifies vessels flagged in several countries as members of Iran’s shadow fleet, and designates their owners “for operating in the petroleum sector of the Iranian economy.”

The newly sanctioned ships include 10 oil and fuel tankers and three tugboats.

In a corresponding action, the State Department designated three companies “for having knowingly engaged in a significant transaction for the purchase, acquisition, sale, transport or marketing of petroleum or petroleum products from Iran.”

Although Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran from his previous term, he also has said he wrote a letter to Iran’s leaders, urging them to enter talks on a new agreement limiting its nuclear program. The US president walked away from an international deal during his first term in 2018, and little progress has been made since then to revive the accord.