The price-cap mechanism boils down to an arithmetic test: seaborne Russian oil must not clear above $60 per barrel, or Western insurance, reinsurance and settlement rails all cut off. Compliance is not judged by whether the contract mentions a cap, but by whether three documents corroborate.

The three documents are the invoice, the bill of lading and the certificate of origin. The invoice states the dealt price, the bill of lading evidences the title move, and the certificate fixes the origin. Only when quantity, vessel and load port line up across all three does a defensible compliance chain exist; a mismatch parks the whole trade at the gate.

Origin must be read separately. Iranian-origin cargoes sit on the platform's auto-reject list — a system-level block with no manual override, a fixed red line rather than a temporary stance. Iraq is not on that list; Basrah Light under SOMO has been exempt since 2 October 2026 and clears through the normal document flow.

The operational point is sharp: in the same transfer book, Basrah Light settles on the standard three documents while Iranian Light never even enters the inquiry stage. Pooling the two origins under a generic Middle East crude label hits the reject line, so they must be managed as distinct grades.