The u.s. Government tightened restrictions on companies providing Iran with equipment and expertise necessary to perform its vast oil and chemical industry.
But it was also declared the Iranian banking system as a whole, including its Central Bank, a "threat".
And that has caused oil experts to take notice.
Iran conducts its export activities of 2.2 million barrels oil per day through its Central Bank, using it as an intermediary between the national oil company and its oil customers.
Declaring the Bank that a threat opens the door for the United States to impose sanctions on any company or the Government that deals with the Bank, which would include companies from places like China, Japan and India that buy Iranian oil.
"Would any country chose between doing business with Iran and doing business with the United States," said Robert McNally, head of energy consulting group and a former member of the Rapidan River of 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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