US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the cabinet official responsible for the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions framework, told Tribune India on 16 April: "We will not be renewing the general license on Russian oil and Iranian oil. That was oil that was on the water prior to March 11th. All that has been used"1. The Federal Register carried zero Iran or OFAC documents between 15 and 18 April. The White House presidential-actions index for 15 April listed nine Enbridge Energy pipeline permits and a budget sequestration order, with nothing on Iran.
General License U (GL-U), the Treasury authorisation that kept Iranian crude in transit legal under a narrow wind-down rule, therefore lapses at 00:01 EDT on Sunday 19 April with no replacement instrument and no published wind-down schedule. Approximately 325 tankers carrying roughly $31.5 billion of cargo lose legal cover at that moment. Secondary-sanction exposure shifts to Indian refiners and third-country buyers from the same minute, and compounds on top of the IRGC enforcement exposure already pricing the corridor since the blockade began.
OFAC Director Bradley T. Smith signed General License 134B (GL 134B) on 17 April at 14:38 EDT, authorising the delivery and sale of Russian-origin crude and petroleum products loaded on vessels as of that date, valid through 12:01 EDT on 16 May 20262. The instrument supersedes GL 134A, dated 19 March 2026 and expired on 11 April. GL 134B explicitly excludes from its authorisation "Any transaction involving a person located in or organized under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran" and separately bars any transaction involving "Iranian-origin goods or services" prohibited under the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR part 560). Russia received a signed 30-day wind-down by the same OFAC machinery that produced nothing for Iran.
Scott Bessent said on 16 April that Treasury would not renew the Russian or Iranian general licence; the signed instrument published the following day extended Russia's wind-down and wrote Iran out by name. Treasury signed paper for Russia on the same day Iran's compliance window was narrowing to hours. Compliance officers at Indian state refiners, Chinese teapots, and commodity trading houses will each apply their own reading of "Bessent said" because no OFAC instrument enumerates the prohibited-transactions scope for Iran, the grace period, or the replacement. Enforcement discretion sits with the first OFAC designation published after Sunday, whenever that arrives. The 49-day zero-Iran-instrument record the White House index confirms now includes a regulatory cliff built inside that same silence, and a Russia parallel that shows the machinery was available.
