Brent Slides 22% in June as Uncertain U.S.–Iran Doha Parley Deflates War Premium

Oil’s abrupt second-quarter sell-off echoes the November 2014 collapse—when OPEC let prices tumble 40 % in six months—reminding markets that geopolitics can move faster than supply fundamentals. The unwinding of the war premium as Washington and Tehran toy with diplomacy fits a century-long pattern: from the 1956 Suez Crisis to the 1991 Gulf War, price spikes tied to Persian Gulf flashpoints often reverse once buyers adapt or expect talks. Today’s decline also intersects two structural forces: (1) a maturing shale industry that can add barrels in months, capping rallies, and (2) a slow-motion energy transition that dampens long-term demand expectations, giving banks confidence to forecast surpluses years out. Whether the Doha talks materialise may matter next week, but on a 100-year arc the bigger story is the gradual erosion of the Gulf’s leverage over pricing—visible whenever a geopolitical scare fails to hold above-ground barrels off the market for long.