The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 134B on April 17, authorizing transactions involving Russian-origin crude and petroleum products loaded as of that date through May 16, 2026. [1] The license is narrow — it covers cargoes already on tankers, not new loadings. Two days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters the prior waiver "would not be renewed." [2]

The renewal is the third in three months. Licenses 134, 134A, and now 134B form a pattern — a wartime-energy compromise renewing itself rather than expiring. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) has called the cumulative effect "freeing up millions of barrels of Russian and Iranian oil," a characterization the Treasury page does not contradict. [3] The Office of Foreign Assets Control's own filing simply lists the new dates; the public statement from Bessent and the filing dates point in opposite directions.

For European refiners and shipping insurers, the consequence is filing language, not policy debate. Any company drawing payment under 134B will book the receivable inside the 30-day window and will need to disclose the license number in its compliance attestation. The renewal pattern means corporate filings continue to carry "subject to General License 134-series" footnotes through at least mid-May.

The wartime question RFE/RL has been asking — whether each renewal undercuts the architecture the sanctions were meant to build — is now harder to dodge in U.S. terms too. Treasury's position is that 134B is wind-down compliance for vessels already at sea. The renewals say the wind-down has not yet been allowed to finish.

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels