US OFAC issues Iran-related General License U — temporary authorization to sell and import Iranian-origin crude already loaded on vessels

Mechanism

GL U is a narrow, dated relief valve rather than a policy reversal: it does not authorize new purchases of Iranian crude, only the completion of sales already in the pipeline — cargo that had already left port and was loaded onto a vessel before the license's effective moment. Coming inside the same maximum-pressure architecture established by NSPM-2 (Feb 4, 2025) and enforced aggressively through 2025-26 (see the April 24, 2026 Hengli Petrochemical designation and GL V wind-down, filed separately), GL U reads as market-management rather than détente: press coverage at the time framed it, alongside a concurrent amendment to Russia-related General License 134, as an effort to ease pressure on global energy markets amid supply disruptions rather than a relaxation of Iran policy. The license expired on schedule April 19, 2026, and OFAC did not publish either GL U or GL V in the Federal Register until June 10, 2026 — a purely administrative, after-the-fact publication of already-lapsed authorizations. GL U was later succeeded by a materially broader authorization, GL X (issued June 22, 2026), which allowed Iranian oil sales for the duration of a subsequent round of talks — suggesting GL U was the first, most cautious step in a sequence of widening carve-outs rather than an isolated event.

Downstream implications

• Confirms the maximum-pressure Iran sanctions regime is being managed

with short, cargo-specific relief windows rather than blanket waivers — a pattern that continued and widened with GL X in June 2026. Consumers of this register should not read GL U as loosening pressure on Iran's oil sector generally; it is register-state relief limited to pre-loaded cargo in a 30-day window, not a change to the underlying sanctions posture.

• Paired timing with a Russia-related General License 134 amendment

suggests both actions were driven by the same global-energy-market concern rather than Iran-specific diplomacy at this stage.

• Because GL U had already expired before its Federal Register

publication, no live compliance obligation currently attaches to it; it is filed here for corpus completeness and as the first link in the GL U → GL V → GL X escalation-of-relief chain.

Open questions

• What specific market conditions (refinery outage, freight bottleneck,

price spike) prompted the March 20, 2026 timing — no primary source located in this pass discloses the trigger.

• Whether GL X (June 22, 2026, broader authorization tied to ongoing

talks) and the underlying talks it references are already filed in this register.