US lifts some restrictions on Russian oil, considers more actions to 'unsanction' it as prices spike

The U.S. is lifting some restrictions on Russian oil and considering more actions to “unsanction” it as the conflict in Iran raises prices globally, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday.

Bessent told Fox Business that the U.S. would allow India to buy Russian barrels.

“Yesterday, Treasury agreed to let our allies in India start buying Russian oil that was already on the water,” Bessent said. 

“The Indians had been very good actors. We had asked them to stop buying sanctioned Russian oil this fall. They did. They were going to substitute it with U.S. oil, but to ease the temporary gap of oil around the world, we have given them permission to accept the Russian oil,” he continued. 

“We may unsanction other Russian oil,” he added to host Larry Kudlow.

“The other thing Treasury can do here, Larry, is, there are hundreds of millions of… barrels of sanctioned crude on the water and in essence, by unsanctioning them, Treasury can create supply,” Bessent said. “We are looking at that. We’re going to keep a cadence of announcing measures to bring relief to the market.”

In a post on the social platform X Thursday night, Bessent said the Trump administration would allow Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil for 30 days.

“This deliberately short-term measure will not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government as it only authorizes transactions involving oil already stranded at sea,” he wrote. 

“This stop-gap measure will alleviate pressure caused by Iran’s attempt to take global energy hostage,” he added.

Oil prices have been on the rise all week after U.S. began its strikes on Iran, which is located near the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping channel.

The equivalent of about 20 percent of the world’s oil consumption typically flows through the strait daily. 

On Friday, both international benchmark Brent Crude and U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil were trading at more than $90 per barrel, up about $20 in the last week.

U.S. gasoline prices were also rising, averaging about $3.32 per gallon on Friday, up about 34 cents from the week prior.

Both the Biden and Trump administrations had previously imposed sanctions on Russian oil because of the country’s war in Ukraine. They argued that cutting off Russian oil could end a major revenue stream for the oil-heavy country and hurt its ability to continue the war.

When gasoline prices rose at the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Trump criticized then-President Biden. Trump made energy affordability a key part of his message to voters.