The United States has sanctioned Iran’s largest and most profitable petrochemical holding group, Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC), for supporting the engineering conglomerate of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in addition to PGPIC’s 39 subsidiary petrochemical companies and foreign-based sales entities, announced the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday.
PGPIC and its group of subsidiary petrochemical companies hold 40 percent of Iran’s total petrochemical production capacity and are responsible for 50 percent of the regime’s total petrochemical exports.
“By targeting this network we intend to deny funding to key elements of Iran’s petrochemical sector that provide support to the IRGC [Islamic Revoluntionary Guard Corps],” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “This action is a warning that we will continue to target holding groups and companies in the petrochemical sector and elsewhere that provide financial lifelines to the IRGC.”
“The IRGC systemically infiltrates critical sectors of the Iranian economy to enrich their coffers, while engaging in a host of other malign activities,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Sigal Mandelker.
The United States officially sanctioned the IRGC as a terrorist group in April.