OFAC, the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, amended FAQ 1224 on 24 July alongside general licence 131H, setting out for the first time what any future licence to effectuate a sale of Lukoil International GmbH would have to satisfy1. Three conditions: complete severance of the sold business from Lukoil, any residual funds owed to Lukoil blocked in a US-jurisdiction account until sanctions lift, and no windfall to Lukoil, which rules out taking value up front through asset or share swaps. Lukoil International GmbH holds the Russian major's downstream assets outside Russia, and it has been unsellable since designation without Washington's permission.
Sanctions bureaus rarely publish licensing criteria in advance, because doing so surrenders discretion. Publishing them here reads as OFAC heading off structures it will not approve, and the no-windfall condition kills the share-swap architecture that has carried other Russian corporate exits. A blocked-funds requirement means a seller collects nothing until sanctions lift, which turns the negotiation from a price argument into a timing-risk argument and narrows the field of buyers who can live with it. Eight rollovers have marked time; these conditions describe what would have to be true for the clock to stop.
The scope needs stating precisely, because it has been misreported. The GL 131 series authorises negotiation for Lukoil International GmbH and entities it owns 50% or more. It names neither ISAB, Priolo Gargallo nor Italy, and OFAC's GL 131G text was already confirmed to exclude the plant. Litasco sold ISAB to GOI Energy in May 2023, so the Sicilian refinery left the Lukoil perimeter three years ago.
ISAB's live sale runs from GOI Energy to Ludoil, gated by Italian Golden Power clearance, not by the GL 131 clock. ISAB Priolo runs 320,000 b/d. The 800kbd figure in circulation covers Lukoil International's entire European portfolio, and the separate Carlyle transaction covers Lukoil's other international assets while excluding ISAB.
