The US extends the deadline for sanctions against Lukoil to December 13
15 November 2025 17:15
The US Treasury Department has extended for three weeks, until December 13, the license for Lukoil’s transactions related to the company’s foreign gas station network and contracts for the sale of its international assets, which account for more than 0.5% of global oil production and are estimated at $22 billion as of 2024. This follows from the statement of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Bloomberg reports, "Komersant Ukrainian".
Prior to that, Donald Trump’s administration demanded that the Russian oil company’s operations abroad be curtailed by November 21.
Separately, the entry into force of sanctions against Lukoil has been postponed for operations with the company’s enterprises in Bulgaria, where it owns the only refinery in the country, which the Bulgarian authorities are preparing to nationalize. The deadline has been pushed back to April 29, 2026, OFAC said. According to Bloomberg’s sources, Washington wants to give its allies in Central Europe and the Middle East more time to close deals with Lukoil and explore options under which they could keep the assets under the control of non-Russian companies.
“OFAC believes they are allowing potential buyers to maintain their positions, but the actual closing of the deal will take much longer than 30 days, even if it is a discounted sale,” said Jeremy Paner, a former OFAC official and partner at Hughes Hubbard & Reed in Washington, D.C.
In late October, the United States imposed sanctions on Lukoil as part of a campaign to pressure the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. Within a month, all companies that do not want to be subject to secondary US sanctions must end any cooperation with the Russian oil giant. “Lukoil, for its part, has announced the sale of its foreign assets.
According to the sources, interest in Lukoil’s portfolio abroad has increased in recent days, and potential buyers from the US, Europe and the Gulf countries have applied to the US Treasury for approval of transactions with the company. The day before, Reuters sources said that Lukoil’s assets could be sold to Carlyle, a large American investment fund. It is currently studying a possible deal and preparing to submit an application to the US Treasury, the sources said.
Prior to that, Washington blocked the sale of Lukoil’s assets to the Swiss trader Gunvor, which is associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s friend Gennady Timchenko. The US Treasury Department called the company a “Kremlin puppet.”
“Lukoil owns three refineries in Europe, stakes in fields in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Mexico, Ghana, Egypt, and Nigeria, as well as hundreds of gas stations around the world, including the United States.
