Spanish
Washington.- The United States Treasury Department announced this Thursday that it will temporarily authorize countries to purchase Russian oil that is in transit, in order to contain the escalation of crude oil prices, caused by the war in Iran.
The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, announced the measure on his X account and estimated that hundreds of millions of barrels of oil could enter the market if sanctions against Russia are lifted.
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Bessent detailed that the sanctions exemptions that will allow the worldwide sale and delivery of all Russian oil currently loaded on ships will only be in effect until April 11. The new measure by the Government of President Donald Trump comes after the price of a barrel of crude oil has fluctuated above 100 dollars per unit in the last few hours. Last week, the Treasury had already authorized India to access Russian oil stranded at sea for a period of 30 days, but now extends the measure globally. The Trump administration emphasized that theoretically lifting the sanctions will not represent a significant benefit for Russia. Trump asserted this Thursday that the rise in oil prices caused by the war of Washington and Israel against Iran and the interruption of the flow in the Strait of Hormuz, will bring "a lot of money" to his country -in reference to the national crude production-, and insisted that his priority right now is to destroy the Iranian nuclear program. The United States "is, by far, the world's largest oil producer, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money", wrote the president on his Truth Social network, as the conflict reaches its thirteenth day amid growing global concern over the disruption of crude oil and gas supply chains. The rise in oil and gas prices makes producers of more difficult-to-extract types of hydrocarbons, such as hydraulic fracturing or oil sands producers in the United States and Canada, more competitive.
