Overview
On August 7, 2015, the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) issued a final rule adding the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye Field, a Russian oil and gas field located in the Sea of Okhotsk, to the Entity List. As a result of this designation, a license will be required to export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to the field any item “subject to” the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), a term that includes US-origin items, items within the United States, foreign-made items incorporating greater than a de minimis amount of US content, and certain foreign-made items that are the “direct product” of certain US technology. BIS will review license applications with a policy of denial. In the final rule, BIS states that it is adding the field to the Entity List because exports, reexports, and transfers to the field present an “unacceptable risk of use in, or diversion to . . . exploration for, or production of, oil or gas in Russian deepwater (greater than 500 feet) locations,” which is a restricted end use under section 746.5 of the EAR.
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