Meidaad Maleki, the former head of the Sanctions Targeting Office at the U.S. Treasury Department, said, with reference to the approval by the U.S. House of Representatives of a five-year extension bill of the Iran sanctions law, which includes sanctions on investment in the energy sector and the provision of certain goods and services to oil and petrochemical industries, that this law is the oldest pillar of Iran’s energy sanctions.

He added that this law has a deterrent effect and that major oil companies such as Shell and Total do not enter the Islamic Republic’s refining sector because of its existence.