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.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS