The US is imposing penalties on a handful of Chinese shipping firms for continuing to carry Iranian oil after sanctions waivers lapsed in May.
China Concord Petroleum Co (中和石油), Kunlun Shipping Co (香港昆侖船務), Pegasus 88 Ltd (飛馬 88 有限公司) and COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Seaman & Ship Management Co (大連中遠海運油運船員船舶管理有限公司) have been charged with knowingly breaching restrictions on handling and transacting Iranian petroleum.
Additional restrictions were also imposed on five executives at the companies, as well as Kunlun Holding Co (崑崙控股有限公司) and COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Co (大連中遠海運油品運輸有限公司), which own or control one or more of the sanctioned entities.
The sanctions bar US citizens and companies from dealing with the shipping companies, effectively blocking them from US banks at the heart of the global financial system.
They also block any property or interests the firms or people have in the US, and forbid any US assets from being paid or transferred to them.
China continues to import relatively small amounts of oil and petroleum products from the Persian Gulf nation in the face of the White House’s sanctions on the OPEC producer. It took 714,862 tonnes of crude from Iran last month, compared with a monthly average of 2.2 million tonnes last year, Chinese customs data showed.
The sanctions could complicate talks to end the US-China trade dispute, which resume in Washington next month.
The penalties do not apply to COSCO’s ultimate parent, COSCO Shipping Corp, or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates, the US Department of the Treasury said in a statement on its Web site.
COSCO Shipping Energy, the parent of COSCO Shipping Tanker (Dalian), yesterday halted trading in Hong Kong after the announcement.
“This is one of the largest sanctions actions the United States has taken against entities and individuals identified as transporting Iranian oil since our sanctions were reimposed in November 2018,” US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in the statement.
These sanctions are over the transport of Iranian crude oil, he said.
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (better known as Foxconn) ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose 60 places to reach No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc. at 348th, Pegatron Corp. at 461st, CPC Corp., Taiwan at 494th and Wistron Corp. at 496th. According to Fortune, the world’s
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek plans to roll out new products this quarter, including a flagship mobile phone chip and a GB10 chip that it is codeveloping with Nvidia Corp MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday projected that revenue this quarter would dip by 7 to 13 percent to between NT$130.1 billion and NT$140 billion (US$4.38 billion and US$4.71 billion), compared with NT$150.37 billion last quarter, which it attributed to subdued front-loading demand and unfavorable foreign exchange rates. The Hsinchu-based chip designer said that the forecast factored in the negative effects of an estimated 6 percent appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the greenback. “As some demand has been pulled into the first half of the year and resulted in a different quarterly pattern, we expect the third quarter revenue to decline sequentially,”
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
DIVERSIFYING: Taiwanese investors are reassessing their preference for US dollar assets and moving toward Europe amid a global shift away from the greenback Taiwanese investors are reassessing their long-held preference for US-dollar assets, shifting their bets to Europe in the latest move by global investors away from the greenback. Taiwanese funds holding European assets have seen an influx of investments recently, pushing their combined value to NT$13.7 billion (US$461 million) as of the end of last month, the highest since 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Over the first half of this year, Taiwanese investors have also poured NT$14.1 billion into Europe-focused funds based overseas, bringing total assets up to NT$134.8 billion, according to data from the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Association (SITCA),
RSS