The Trump administration continues to aggressively drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The amount of crude in the SPR tumbled by another 9.1 million barrels last week, just shy of the record-setting decline the prior week. The emergency reserve is down by 50 million barrels over just the past two months alone.

Gasoline inventories continue to fall sharply, declining last week to the lowest May level since 2014. Diesel and other distillates are now at their lowest level since May 2003.

The Iran-US conflict is effectively in military stalemate - the massive dumping of ordinance by Israel and the US destroyed only a fraction of Iran's missiles, but used up 20%-40% of the US supply of sophisticated offensive and defensive munitions. The US simply can't afford to repeat the same scope of attack without seriously limiting their military during other potential conflicts.

OTOH, the US blockade is seriously impacting the Iranian government's ability to rule. Of course, it is also negatively impacting some of the political allies of the current US government.

In the game of who can hold whose breath longest - Iran or the US, it is advantageous for both sides to settle quicker, rather than later. Both sides have to look like they have "won" to their domestic constituencies and both are eyeing "the day after" as to whether, once traffic through the Strait has normalized, the US can force Iran to give up its enriched uranium.

Frankly, the US is unlikely, after all this bruhaha to get a deal as good as the Obama administration did - which was abrogated by the first Trump administration.

Poor decisions make for poor outcomes.

Jeff