The United States ratcheted up its sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry on Tuesday, focusing this time on maritime companies and their assets who have been assisting the Latin American country in getting its blacklisted crude oil to market, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said on Tuesday. “The illegitimate Maduro regime has enlisted the help of maritime companies and their vessels to continue the exploitation of Venezuela’s natural resources for the regime’s profit,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, adding that the US will continue to target anyone to supports Maduro’s regime and contributes “to the suffering of the Venezuelan people.” The additional sanctions comes on the same day as PDVSA documents showed that Venezuela’s oil exports plummeted to a 17-year low, according to Reuters. Venezuela exported just a hair over 450,000 bpd of crude oil in May—just 18 cargoes. The 17-year low is attributed in part to the U.S. sanctions which has turned out to be akin to a game of whack-a-mole, with new shippers willing to ship PDVSA almost as soon as the last batch were sanctioned. The previous round of sanctions hit Rosneft subsidiaries. A Mexico company, Libre Abordo, was another company willing to trade oil with Venezuela, but the company declared bankruptcy on Sunday, claiming that the United States had spearheaded an international political campaign against it, causing it to lose more than $90 million. Libre Abordo said that Maduro had canceled the oil for food swap arrangement. The United States is having a hard time squashing Venezuela’s oil exports to zero with Iran sending five tankers of fuel to the struggling country, with Iran unconcerned about running afoul of sanctions against Venezuela since its own crude oil is sanctioned as well. By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Brent Tops $40 For The First Time Since March U.S. Oil Drillers Restart Production As Prices Recover Will Sodium Batteries Replace Lithium-Ion? Read this article on OilPrice.com