US President Joe Biden is reportedly mulling a new addition to his sanctions blacklist: a network of companies accused of using ship-to-ship transfers to disguise Iranian crude as Iraqi volumes.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the efforts could target a United Arab Emirates businessman tied to the network.
They are accused of transferring oil in the waters between Iran and Iraq in a bid to hide the cargoes’ origin and evade sanctions, according to corporate documents reviewed by the newspaper as well as shipping data and people familiar with the matter.
The identities of the businessman and the companies involved have not been disclosed.
Potential new additions to the US Treasury Department’s blacklist of “specially designated nationals” over sanctions loom as Washington continues to struggle to forge an agreement with Iran to restore an agreement to ease sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme.
It would be the latest blacklisting since an early July move to sanction two ships and 13 companies associated with a petrochemical trading ring.
The US Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of the Wall Street Journal report.
Efforts to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was scuttled by former US President Donald Trump in 2018, remain at an apparent standstill, even as inflation has exerted pressure on Washington to rein in fuel prices.
On Thursday, US State Department spokesman Edward Price reiterated that the Biden administration remains open to returning to the terms of the JCPOA.
“There has been one country that has prevented a return to compliance with the JCPOA. That is Iran,” he said during a press briefing.
“We have made very clear that we are prepared to return to compliance with the JCPOA, assuming that Iran does the same. We have made that clear publicly. We have conveyed that message privately, if indirectly, to the Iranians.”
