U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday announced another 30-day extension of a sanctions waiver allowing purchases of Russian seaborne oil to aid “energy-vulnerable” countries hit by the Iran war, reversing plans not to grant an extension.
Bessent said in a posting on X that the Treasury was issuing the 30-day general license after a previous waiver lapsed on Saturday. This will allow temporary access to Russian oil and petroleum products stranded on tankers without violating severe U.S. sanctions on Russian oil majors, he said.
A source familiar with the decision had told Reuters that the second waiver extension was requested by poor and vulnerable countries that cannot get Gulf oil shipments due to the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
“This extension will provide additional flexibility, and we will work with these nations to provide specific licenses as needed,” Bessent said. “This general license will help stabilize the physical crude market and ensure oil reaches the most energy-vulnerable countries.”
Bessent, who last month told the Associated Press that no further extension of the Russian oil sanctions waiver was planned, on Monday argued that the measure would help reroute existing supply to countries most in need, allowing them to compete with China for previously sanctioned oil.
The action marks the second time the Treasury has allowed the sanctions waiver to lapse and subsequently extended it.
Two senior Democratic senators, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, blasted the move as an “indefensible gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Every additional dollar the Kremlin earns from this license helps Putin finance his illegal war against Ukraine and kill innocent Ukrainians,” they said in a statement. They said the U.S. sanctions relief was also not driving down gasoline prices at home or stabilizing global energy markets.
The Trump administration last year slapped sanctions on Russian oil majors Rosneft and Lukoil to pressure Russia to end its war in Ukraine by depriving vital oil revenues to Moscow.
But after U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran drove up global oil prices, the Treasury first issued the temporary license in March in an attempt to ease oil supply shortages and mitigate price spikes by releasing sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products stranded in tankers. The waivers do not apply to oil now being pumped by Russia.
LIMITED IMPACT
Analysts said the short-term waivers may help some individual countries dependent on Gulf oil supplies, but would do little to drive down U.S. gasoline prices, a key goal of the Trump administration.
“It is not yet clear whether these short-term authorizations have had any meaningful impact on U.S. gasoline prices,” said Stephanie Connor, a former policy director at the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and now a partner with Holland & Knight. She noted that British and European sanctions on Russian oil purchases remain in place.
As in the previous waiver, the license allowed purchases of Russian crude and petroleum products loaded on vessels as of April 17, limiting the volume of the sales and not allowing access to Russian oil that had been more recently loaded.
Charles Lichfield, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, said that the waivers would boost Russia’s oil revenues, already bolstered by higher oil prices, while offsetting the impact of increased Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure.
