An alert was issued by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on April 17 warning about the potential evasion of the Russian-origin oil price cap. The alert came after OFAC had received reports that oil exported from the Eastern Siberia Pacific (ESPO) pipeline or ports on Russia’s eastern coast was trading above the price cap.

As per the current sanctions, U.S. persons are prohibited from offering certain services related to the maritime transportation of Russian oil, unless the oil was purchased at or below the predetermined price cap. Additional prohibited services include trading/commodities brokering, financing, shipping, insurance, flagging, and customs brokering.

We provide further analysis of the OFAC’s recommendations in this post.