Sri Lankan company among entities designated by US over supply of Iranian oil to China

A company based in Sri Lanka is among the entities designated by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

According to the US embassy, Marshall Islands-registered Celestite Maritime Inc. and Sri Lanka-based Marine Solution Pvt. Ltd. serve as the registered owner and technical manager of Barbados-flagged SHANNON II, which was designated for shipping Iranian oil.  

The OFAC designated Iran’s Minister of Petroleum, Mohsen Paknejad, who oversees the export of tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil and has allocated billions of dollars’ worth of oil to Iran’s armed forces for export. OFAC is also designating several entities in multiple jurisdictions, including the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India, for their ownership or operation of vessels that have delivered Iranian oil to the PRC, or lifted Iranian oil from storage in Dalian, PRC. Today’s sanctions apply further pressure on the “shadow fleet” and other vessels upon which Iran depends to deliver its oil to the PRC, advancing United States’ commitment to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero, according to the U.S.Treasury.  

Iran’s Ministry of Petroleum and the Iranian armed forces rely on a vast shadow fleet of vessels to disguise oil shipments worth billions of dollars for delivery to the PRC,it said.