Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
Russia-Ukraine War 2026
3AUG

US Oil Sanctions Waiver Expires 11 April Amid Confusion

2 min read
10:16UTC

OFAC's GL 134A expires 11 April; at $121 per barrel, any extension would hand Russia far more revenue than when the waiver was issued at $73, while simultaneous vessel desanctioning created contradictory signals.

← Back to Russia's costliest month, smallest gainJump to analysis ↓
ConflictDeveloping
Key takeaway

GL 134A expiry on 11 April is the binary choice: extension at $121/barrel or lapse compounding Russia's crisis.

OFAC issued General License 134 on 12 March, covering the roughly 124 million barrels of Russian crude at sea , amended it to GL 134A on 19 March, and faces a binary decision on its 11 April expiry. At $73 per barrel when issued, the waiver was defensible as market stabilisation. At $121, the same licence authorises far greater per-barrel income than its design contemplated.

OFAC added Iran, North Korea, and Cuba exclusions to GL 134A one week after the original licence, a rapid amendment suggesting Treasury received evidence that cargoes were being redirected toward sanctioned parties. On 31 March, OFAC separately removed sanctions on three Russian cargo vessels: Fesco Magadan, Fesco Moneron, and SV Nikolay.

The contradictory pattern, tightening the licence's terms while reducing pressure on named Russian vessels, is consistent with an administration managing competing objectives across the Iran war and Ukraine simultaneously. The Atlantic Council warned that extension at current prices "risks sustaining Russia's war effort."

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The US government gave Russia a special oil sales exemption that expires on 11 April. When it was issued, oil prices were around $73 per barrel. Now that the Iran war has pushed prices to $121, extending the same exemption would hand Russia much more money than originally intended. At the same time, the US removed sanctions on three Russian ships while tightening the exemption's rules — sending confusing signals about American policy toward Russia.

What could happen next?
  • Risk

    GL 134A extension at $121/barrel would constitute the largest single US-authorised revenue transfer to Russia since sanctions began.

Sources:Mayer Brown
Mentions:Moscow →Ukraine →Iran →Urals →North Korea →Russia →OFAC →Atlantic Council →
First Reported In

Update #11 · Russia Sells Less Oil but Earns More

Mayer Brown· 5 Apr 2026
Read original →
Causes and effects
This Event
US Oil Sanctions Waiver Expires 11 April Amid Confusion
The GL 134A expiry is a binary US policy signal: extension at $121 per barrel directly subsidises Moscow's war revenue; lapse combined with Baltic terminal damage would compound Russia's export crisis.
Led to
Treasury kills $150M-a-day Russian oil waiver
At $121 Urals the waiver was running 2.6x above the $73 barrel design price, making non-renewal a structural inevitability.
Occurred 16 Apr 2026
Read story →
GL 134A lapses toward quiet extension
GL 134A event is the direct resolution of ID:2027's binary-choice framing: extension at $121/bbl or lapse on the 11 April expiry date.
Occurred 11 Apr 2026
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Belarus
Belarus
Minsk announced completion of its own 37th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade near Gomel, under plans dating to August 2025 rather than a response to any single frontline event this window, keeping its hedge of hosting the war without formally joining Russia's mobilisation drive.
European Union / Operation IRINI states
European Union / Operation IRINI states
Italy, Greece and Poland boarded the sanctioned tanker Toa Payoh off Pantelleria under a standing EU mandate rather than a national decision, extending enforcement from the Channel and Baltic and the Black Sea and Azov into the Mediterranean. Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto praised the crew; the captain's refusal to produce documentation left detention unconfirmed.
Poland and the NATO eastern flank
Poland and the NATO eastern flank
Warsaw's Coordination Team said explicitly its forces tracked the 30 July missile incursion and were ready to shoot it down, then flew air cover for an EU tanker interdiction three days later. Poland is simultaneously the war's nearest spillover victim and a contributor to enforcing sanctions against the state causing that spillover.
Ukraine (government, defence establishment and civilians)
Ukraine (government, defence establishment and civilians)
Kyiv runs its manpower crisis through acting Defence Minister Yevhen Khmara, whose formal appointment waits for parliament's 18 August return, and a fortnight-old Commander-in-Chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi. Reported attacks on enlistment officers rose from 5 cases in 2022 to 341 in 2025, reaching Odesa's Territorial Recruitment Centre staff directly on 2 August.
Kremlin and Russian domestic economic voices
Kremlin and Russian domestic economic voices
Moscow has not addressed July's advance-rate collapse or Sberbank's OFZ warning; Novak's diary ran to OPEC+ quota diplomacy with no diesel item logged since 15 July. Economist Nikolai Korzhenevsky calls the Central Bank's RUB 2.3tn in bank lending effectively deficit monetisation, a framing Sberbank's Skvortsov, with his own institutional interest, has not disputed.
IAEA (Rafael Grossi)
IAEA (Rafael Grossi)
IAEA inspectors logged Zaporizhzhia's 22nd loss of off-site power, ten of them in the last three months, after a thunderstorm knocked out the plant's sole surviving backup line. Grossi reads the accelerating frequency, not any single outage, as the safety signal now that the plant's redundancy is exhausted.