ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The US State Department on Friday issued sanctions against dozens of entities, including Turkish petrochemical traders and 14 “shadow fleet” vessels accused of illegally shipping millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil.
The sanctions against 29 entities were announced hours after the first round of US-Iranian talks ended in Oman on Friday and followed a week of tense military standoffs between the two countries in the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty percent of the world’s oil is transported through the waterway, which Iran frequently threatens to block. The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) seized two foreign oil tankers for smuggling fuel in the Gulf on Thursday, Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA reported Thursday.
The State Department said in a statement that the vessels “have moved millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil and play a key role in the Iranian export supply chain. They have also regularly engaged in dark activity and other deceptive shipping practices, endangering other vessels and legitimate trade flows.”
Sanctions were levied against trade and shipping companies in 12 countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Turkey.
Five of the entities are Turkish, with four accused of “knowingly engaging in a significant transaction” of petrochemical products in 2024, the State Department said. They include Starex, a trading company that imported over $8 million in Iranian petrochemicals.
Amon Kimya and its manager, Mehmet Ozsuren, were sanctioned for importing Iranian ammonia from Iran’s Lordegan Ureau Fertilizer company. The other companies include MHK Shipping, Mars Oceanway and Diako, a petrochemical trader. Diako was accused of importing over $700,000 in Iranian petrochemical products from sanctioned companies, including UAE-based Soft Air.
UAE-based Bakht al-Azhar Trading was also sanctioned for exporting over $1 million worth of Iranian-origin petrochemical products, the State Department said.
Other sanctioned companies are based in Barbados, Panama, the Marshall Islands, Aruba, China, the Seychelles, Cameroon, India, Iran, Kazakhstan and the southern European country of San Marino.
The sanctions were levied under a 2018 executive order issued by US President Donald Trump after the US withdrew from an international nuclear deal with Iran. Sanctions on the country’s energy, shipping and financial sectors have deepened Iran’s economic crisis by cutting oil revenue.