In the first such move against oil shipments to India, the U.S. Treasury department announced it had imposed sanctions against a Mumbai based petrochemical company amongst several entities accused of selling Iranian petroleum products.
The company, Mumbai based Tibalaji in particular that was accused purchasing shipments that were then sent to China, is the first Indian entity to face the U.S. designation under unilateral sanctions passed in 2018-19, after the U.S. Trump administration’s decision to walk out of the nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran. While India has officially refused to endorse the “unilateral sanctions” of the U.S., the Modi government agreed to end all oil imports from Iran in 2019, that made up about 11% of India’s intake, rather than face the sanctions.
Announcing the move on Thursday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it had sanctioned the “international network of companies” that were involved in the sale of “hundreds of millions of dollars” worth Iranian petrochemical products to South Asia and East Asia.
