ABOVE: Bandar Abbas Port, Iran

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I had an inquiry recently to list all of the Iranian ports managed by Tidewater Middle East which was recently placed on the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (the “SDN List”) by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”). U.S. exporters legally shipping items such as food to Iran under the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (“TSRA”) need to know this because, as a result of the recent sanctions, such licensed shipments cannot go through ports managed by Tidewater. Only TSRA exports licensed prior to June 23, 2011, could transit those ports pursuant to a general license that expired on August 23, 2011.

OFAC, when announcing the sanctions, provided the a list of Tidewater ports affected by the sanctions not in the SDN list itself but in a separate press release:

• Bandar Abbas (Shahid Rajaee Container Terminal)
• Bandar Imam Khomeini Grain Terminal
• Bandar Anzali
• Khorramshahr Port (one terminal)
• Assaluyeh Port
• Aprin Port
• Amir Abad Port Complex

The southern ports of Bushehr and Chabahar do not appear to be operated by Tidewater currently and, in theory, could be used for TSRA exports. I did, however, find other evidence, such as this, that suggested that Tidewater also operated at those two ports.

Interestingly, however, the Tidewater website appears to have disabled the pages that specify which ports it operates. The menu link for “Ports and Terminals Mng” is, oddly, dead and does not supply a list of ports operated by Tidewater. Presumably the only reason Tidewater would kill that link is to make compliance with the OFAC sanctions more difficult.

Frankly, there is no reason why the SDN list should name Tidewater only and not the specific ports that are sanctioned. Leaving such uncertainty with respect to available ports for TSRA exports improperly interferes with Congress’s direction in TSRA that OFAC was to permit exports of agricultural products, medicine and medical devices to Iran.

UPDATE (11-4-11):An alert reader (Bradley Allen at ATTUS Technologies) found an earlier version of the Tidewater site on the Wayback Machine before Tidewater scrubbed the names of the ports it operated. Click on the tabbed link for “Port and Terminals Mng” and you’ll get, in this older version, a list of Tidewater’s ports. This confirms that one of Tidewater’s responses to the U.S. sanctions was to try to obscure and conceal which ports it operated.

A Federal Register notice is scheduled to be published tomorrow in which the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announces the issuance of a general license for the export of food to Iran and Sudan. Previously, although the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 (“TSRA”) authorized the export of agricultural products, medicine and medical devices to Iran and Sudan, those exports required specific one-year licenses from OFAC. The general license does not cover sales to military or law enforcement purchasers.

The general license specifically covers “food” which is a subset of agricultural products. The new rules will define food as

items that are intended to be consumed by and provide nutrition to humans or animals … ,
including vitamins and minerals, food additives and supplements, and bottled drinking water, and seeds that germinate into items that are intended to be consumed by and provide nutrition to humans or animals.

Items that are agricultural products but not food will still require licenses.

The rules make some specific exceptions to the definition of food, including, not surprisingly, castor beans. Thriller enthusiasts and news junkies will understand this exception: castor beans are used to manufacture the highly powerful poison ricin (although Iran can easily grow castor beans or import them from other countries other than the United States.) Also excluded are Rosary/Jequirity peas, the source of ricin’s more potent cousin abrin, which although more powerful than ricin is not known, according to the CDC, to have been weaponized or used in terrorist attacks.

My favorite part of the new rule is the exclusion of alcoholic beverages from the general license for Iran. I have not figured out whether this exclusion is made from ignorance, Puritanism or a desire by OFAC to enforce Islamic law. It should probably come as no surprise to anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Iran or Islam that alcoholic beverages are illegal in Iran and that people trying to import them into Iran are subject to being shot or sentenced to prison.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to correct a mistake I made in reading the new rule which does in fact permit export under general license of food to the Government of Iran and to purchasers outside Iran for export to Iran. My apologies for any confusion.