Tightening the Petrochemicals Net

UANI Research Director Daniel Roth writes: "Last month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned Iran's biggest petrochemical holding company, Persian Gulf Petrochemical, and reaffirmed its threat to "vigorously enforce" existing sanctions on Iranian petrochemicals exports - which provide the Iranian regime with $13 billion annually. Some U.S. allies haven't gotten the message though because ships carrying products like ethane, methanol and urea continue docking around the world, most recently in Brazil. Iran is exploiting the size and complexity of global sea-trade to sell its petrochemical products. Because ocean trade encompasses a wide spectrum of highly specialized, limited roles that could be interpreted as being excluded from U.S. sanctions, nobody is taking responsibility for stopping the sale of sanctioned cargo."