The U.S. government tightened restrictions on companies that provide Iran with equipment and expertise necessary to run its vast oil and chemical industry.
But it it also declared the entire Iranian banking system, including its central bank, a "threat."
And that caused oil experts to take notice.
Iran conducts its 2.2 million barrel-a-day oil export business through its central bank, using it as an intermediary between the national oil company and its oil customers.
Declaring the bank a threat opens the door for the United States to impose sanctions on any company or government that deals with the bank, which would include companies from places like China, Japan and India that buy Iranian oil.
"It would force any country to chose between doing businesses with Iran and doing business with the United States," said Robert McNally, head of the energy consultancy the Rapidan River Group and a former adviser to President George w. Bush.
And that would be a direct attempt to cut oil exports from Iran.
Iran is the third largest exporter of oil in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Russia, according to the energy information agency of the United States. The Iranian Government gets 50% of revenues from its oil exports.
The country exports more oil to Libya, which is still largely out of the market. Most of the world's remaining oil production capacity to spare sits in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudis, it would be hard pressed to make for another 2.2 million barrels per day.
So limit exports of Iran would likely send oil prices higher.
But some experts doubt the impact that these new stricter sanctions will have on Iran's ability to sell its oil.
Sanction companies who buy Iranian oil limp Iranian oil exports but not stop them all together, they say.
Oil is a fungible good, which means that you can fill a tanker ship to different ports, sell the oil to different companies and have it end up on the world markets with little trace of its origin.
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