The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 134B on Friday afternoon, extending the Russia oil waiver to May 16 at 12:01 a.m. [1] The same document kept the restriction OFAC added in March: no transactions involving persons in or organized under the laws of Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Crimea, or the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. [2] Two days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had told reporters Washington would not be renewing the Russia waiver, or the separate Iran license expiring Sunday. [3]

Forty-eight hours later the Russia track got another month. The Iran track died on schedule.

The paper's April 18 lead, which argued the Friday rally mistook porosity for peace, now has a cleaner seam to inspect. The market read the Friday waiver extension as a stabilisation move. Brent fell nine percent to roughly $90 on the news. [3] OFAC's own text read it differently: one basket is being carried forward, a different basket is being ended, and the line between them runs through Tehran.

The waiver architecture is narrower than it looks. Russia-related General License 134 has been amended twice since its March 12 issue. GL 134A, on March 19, limited authorisation to cargoes loaded before March 12 and added the Iran exclusion. [2] GL 134B, Friday's version, pushed the load-date forward to April 17 and kept the exclusion intact. [1] Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told reporters the extension covers another 100 million barrels of Russian crude — bringing the total under waiver across both licenses to roughly 200 million barrels. [3]

Iran's parallel instrument was General License U, issued March 20. It authorised the "delivery and sale of Iranian-origin crude oil and petroleum products… loaded on vessels as of March 20." Baker McKenzie called it "the first OFAC general license broadly authorising transactions involving Iranian-origin crude oil and petroleum products." [2] It also called it "exceptional (but still short-term)." The short term was Sunday, April 19, 12:01 a.m. EDT. [2] Treasury let it go.

The Friday move carried an audience. A US official quoted by Reuters said partner countries at the G20 and IMF meetings had pushed Washington to allow alternative supplies to reach the market. [3] Asian buyers — including the Philippines, which Energy Secretary Sharon Garin said had formally requested an extension — have been lobbying for weeks. [4] The Treasury spokesperson's line to Reuters was that "as negotiations accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure oil is available to those who need it." [3] Negotiations accelerating is not what Iran's deputy foreign minister said Friday; he said there was no date for Round 2 because the American position was still maximalist. [3]

Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Chuck Schumer, and Elizabeth Warren called the Friday move "shameful and a 180-degree reversal from Secretary Bessent." [5] Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a Sunday post on his Telegram and X channels, did the math the administration did not: 110 shadow-fleet tankers, roughly twelve million tonnes of crude, "about $10 billion — a resource that directly translates into new strikes against Ukraine." [5]

Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert at Obsidian Risk Advisors, told Reuters that Friday's renewal was "likely not" the last. [3] That is the sentence operators will read. A waiver that can be extended can also be extended again. An Iran license that expired can be renewed — or not. Treasury's own pattern suggests the latter.

What OFAC did with 134B was not a reversal. It was a sort: the architecture the paper described as "flag filter" on Saturday now has a GL filter too. Russian crude already afloat can transact. Iranian crude already afloat cannot. A ceasefire expiring Wednesday is priced alongside a Russia waiver renewed until May 16. The market will price the gap.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco