US hits Iran’s largest petrochemical group, PGPIC, with sanctions

The move aims to choke off financing to Tehran’s most profitable petrochemical group, the Treasury Department said

The PGPIC group is responsible for 50 per cent of the country’s petrochemical exports

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An oil production platform in the Persian Gulf. Photo: Reuters

Published: 12:08am, 8 Jun 2019Updated: 1:57am, 8 Jun 2019

The United States on Friday hit Iran’s petrochemical group PGPIC with economic sanctions because of its ties to the country’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the Treasury Department announced in Washington.

The move aims to choke off financing to the country’s largest and most profitable petrochemical group and extends to its 39 subsidiaries and “foreign-based sales agents,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

“This action is a warning that we will continue to target holding groups and companies in the petrochemical sector and elsewhere that provide financial lifelines to the IRGC,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in the statement.

The department warned that international companies continuing to partner with PGPIC or subsidiaries and sales agents “will themselves be exposed to US sanctions.”

The US efforts over the past year to choke off Iran’s economy, after President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor, has angered allies as foreign companies get caught up in the dispute.