Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2665 actions· ✨ 90 recent

Japan lowered its price cap on Russian-origin crude oil from USD 60 to USD 47.60 per barrel, effective for contracts concluded on or after 12 September 2025, aligning with the EU's July 2025 cut under its 18th sanctions package. The measure bars Japanese entities from importing, or providing shipping, insurance, financing or other services for, Russian crude priced above the new cap. In the same package Japan added 47 Russian entities and 9 individuals, 6 Crimea/Donbas-linked persons and entities, and 3 third-country entities to its asset-freeze list (transactions now require Ministry of Finance approval), and imposed export prohibitions on 2 Russian entities and 9 entities in third countries. Japan's own Russian crude imports are minimal (~0.1% of total crude imports, Jan-Jul 2025), so the measure is primarily a coalition-alignment and shipping/insurance-chokepoint action rather than a material change to Japan's own energy sourcing.

On 2 September 2025, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Waleed Khaled Hameed al-Samarra'i, a dual Iraqi/St Kitts-and-Nevis citizen, along with his UAE-based shipping manager Babylon and five Marshall Islands-registered shell companies (Tryfo Navigation, Keely Shiptrade, Odiar Management, Panarea Marine, Topsail Shipholding) that hold registered ownership of nine Liberia-flagged tankers (ADENA, LILIANA, CAMILLA, DELFINA, BIANCA, ROBERTA, ALEXANDRA, BELLAGIO, PAOLA). The network blends Iranian crude with Iraqi oil via ship-to-ship transfers in the Arabian Gulf and at Iraqi ports, then markets the blend as solely Iraqi-origin to evade US sanctions, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for the Iranian regime and al-Samarra'i. The action was taken pursuant to Executive Order 13902 and blocks all US property and interests of the designated individual, entities and vessels.

On 30 April 2025 the US Department of State designated seven entities and identified two vessels as blocked property for facilitating trade in Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products, under Executive Order 13846 and in furtherance of National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 (NSPM-2, "Restoring Maximum Pressure on the Government of Iran"). The action named four UAE-based sellers and one purchaser of Iranian petrochemicals — including Solvent Organics (over $300 million in exports of Iranian-origin petrochemicals to third countries) and Alseerah Trading (over $150 million) — plus a Turkiye-based petrochemical trader, an Iran-based cargo inspection company, and a marine management company involved in transporting millions of barrels of Iranian crude. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated the goal was to drive Iran's illicit oil and petrochemical exports, including to China, to zero.

On January 10, 2025, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), acting jointly with the Department of State, designated PJSC Gazprom Neft and PJSC Surgutneftegas as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) under Executive Orders 13662 and 14024, alongside more than 180 oil-carrying vessels (the bulk of Russia's "shadow fleet"), dozens of opaque oil traders, two major Russia-based oilfield service providers, marine insurance companies, and senior Russian energy-sector officials. The package included a new EO 14024 sectoral determination authorizing future designations against any person operating in the Russian energy sector, plus a new EO 14071 determination prohibiting the provision of US petroleum services (extraction, drilling, production support) to persons located in the Russian Federation, effective 12:01 a.m. EST on February 27, 2025. OFAC simultaneously issued General Licenses 117 (wind-down of transactions with the newly blocked entities) and 118 (debt/equity/derivatives wind-down), both expiring February 27, 2025. The action was the largest single Russia energy-sector designation since the 2022 invasion regime began and was coordinated with parallel UK OFSI shadow-fleet designations issued the same week. The action was finalized in the closing days of the Biden administration as a deliberate tightening of the oil-revenue and shadow-fleet vectors before the January 20 transition. Subsequent enforcement and any rollback decisions fell to the incoming Trump administration.

The UK laid the Republic of Belarus (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 (UKSI 2022/748), in force 5 July 2022, extending the Belarus sanctions regime to mirror measures already imposed on Russia over the invasion of Ukraine. The regulations ban export to Belarus of dual-use goods and technology for all purposes, and of critical-industry goods and technology including quantum-computing components, microelectronics, marine and navigation equipment, and aircraft/aircraft parts. They widen existing import bans to cover a greater range of petroleum/mineral products and prohibit import of arms, iron and steel products originating in or consigned from Belarus, and extend financial sanctions barring Belarusian companies from issuing debt or securities in London or obtaining loans from UK banks, and barring UK persons from providing financial services to the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus or the Belarusian Ministry of Finance.