U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on a third Chinese independent, or "teapot" oil refinery and port terminal operators in China for purchases of Iranian oil ahead of an expected fourth round of U.S.-Iran nuclear talks.
The U.S. Treasury designated the Hebei Xinhai Chemical Group refinery and three companies for operating a terminal at Dongying Port in Shandong province. It said they had purchased or facilitated the delivery of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Iranian oil.
It was the latest independent Chinese refinery targeted by the Trump administration after it re-imposed a policy of "maximum pressure" that aims to cut off Iran's export revenue to pressure Tehran into a deal to curb its nuclear program and stop the funding of militant groups across the Middle East.
Previous sanctions imposed on two small Chinese refiners for buying Iranian oil have created difficulties in receiving oil, leading them to halt purchases of crude and sell product under other names, sources familiar with the matter said.
Those sanctions have also begun to deter other, larger independent Chinese refiners from buying Iranian crude, three of the sources said.
Based in the port city of Cangzhou, Xinhai is among China's largest independent refiners outside the teapot hub of Shandong province. It operates a 120,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery that includes a bitumen plant with annual capacity of 5 million metric tons, and its 74,000 bpd crude import quota is among the largest for plants its size.
"China has always firmly opposed the U.S.'s abuse of illegal unilateral sanctions and 'long-arm jurisdiction,'" said Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington. "The U.S. should stop interfering with and undermining the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and Iran."
The companies Treasury designated for operating the port terminal were Baogang (Dongying Donggang) Logistics and Warehousing Co, Ltd, Shandong Jingang Port Co, Ltd, and Shandong Baogang International Port Co, Ltd.
Treasury said the companies operate a terminal in Dongying Port that has received more than one million barrels of Iranian oil.