The U.S. government is unveiling a new suite of sanctions targeting Chinese entities engaged in the distribution of Iranian oil.
In a statement shared with The Epoch Times on May 8, the Treasury Department announced that it is blacklisting four entities in China for “their role in purchasing or facilitating the delivery of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil.”
The sanctions target three port terminal operators and a “teapot refinery” in Shandong Province.
Teapot refineries are small oil refineries in China that operate alongside larger state-owned enterprises. They have gained prominence for their ability to process crude oil and export refined products while circumventing international regulations and sanctions that affect larger companies.
Such refineries have become a key mechanism in recent years through which the Chinese Communist Party can provide economic support to its international partners who are under sanctions, namely Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
That campaign has also involved directing Justice Department officials to investigate Iranian state-sponsored terrorism in the United States.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the May 8 statement that the new sanctions would further intensify the administration’s pressure campaign against Iran’s destabilizing activities.
“As part of President Trump’s broad and aggressive maximum pressure campaign, Treasury today is targeting another teapot refinery that imported Iranian oil,” Bessent said.
“The United States remains resolved to intensify pressure on all elements of Iran’s oil supply chain to prevent the regime from generating revenue to further its destabilizing agenda.”
Hebei Xinhai, the teapot refinery sanctioned on May 8, has received multiple shipments of Iranian crude oil in recent months, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, the Treasury Department said. Some of those shipments, it added, were delivered by vessels already on the department’s blocked list.
The port terminal operators, meanwhile, facilitated the delivery of more than a million barrels of Iranian oil.
The department is also sanctioning several smaller entities that facilitated such deliveries, including the captains of two vessels, both of whom are Indian nationals.
The Chinese regime has long helped Iran to skirt international sanctions by providing infrastructure and related investments to Tehran in exchange for oil.
The largest example of this in-kind trading system was in 2023, when Beijing provided more than $2.5 billion in labor and investments to build out Iran’s largest airport. Instead of being paid in sanctionable cash, China received numerous shipments of Iranian oil, largely delivered by Iran’s shadow fleet to Chinese teapot refineries.
