The United States on Friday sanctioned a network of entities and individuals alleged to have funneled billions of dollars to Iran via illicit oil sales, taking aim at a China-based terminal operator responsible for importing tens of millions of barrels of sanctioned crude.
According to the State Department, the move as part of ongoing actions under the Trump administration’s Economic Fury policy to derail Tehran’s main revenue source for financing military action and terrorist activities. The move represents the 12th round of sanctions on Iranian oil sales since National Security Presidential Memorandum-2 was issued on Feb. 4, 2025.
“The United States is taking decisive action to disrupt Iran’s illicit oil trade, the Iranian regime’s primary revenue streams that fund terrorism and regional destabilization,” the department said in a fact sheet.
Officials sanctioned Qingdao Haiye Oil Terminal Co., Ltd., a China-based operator in the Qingdao Huangdao port area of Shandong province, as well as its president, Xinchun Li, a Chinese national.
The terminal took dozens of shipments amounting to tens of millions of barrels of Iranian-origin crude in 2025, often from vessels executing illicit ship-to-ship transfers off Singapore’s eastern outer port limits, which is known for such evasion.
Those transfers included vessels that had been previously sanctioned by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for handling Iranian energy products. The efforts rely on “sophisticated evasion schemes, including illicit ship-to-ship transfers and ‘dark fleet’ operations that employ deceptive shipping practices endangering legitimate maritime commerce,” according to the State Department.
“So long as Iran attempts to generate oil revenues to fund its destabilizing activities, the United States will hold both Iran and all its sanctions-evading partners accountable,” the department stated.
The designations indicate property and interests in property of the sanctioned persons in the United States or in the possession of U.S. persons are blocked. Transactions between them and U.S. persons are also prohibited.