[thackney]

sells its oil on the open oil market, to which nobody has any authority to decide who gets that oil.

The ban is real and does have effect. The countries are limited in who will buy.

[Jonty30]

It was always my understanding is that, more or less, countries sold their oil onto the market and countries bought off that market. There really wasn’t an easy way to track where that oil came from.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1584659/posts