Iran is urging U.S. President Donald Trump not to tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to bring oil prices down, but drop the sanctions against Tehran instead. A senior Iranian oil official, the country’s OPEC Governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, addressed President Trump over the weekend following reports that the U.S. Administration is actively considering tapping the SPR to try to bring down oil prices—and gasoline prices—ahead of the mid-term elections in November, the same month in which the renewed U.S. sanctions on Iran are returning. The U.S. Administration is considering releasing part of the 660-million-barrel SPR, with options ranging from a test sale of 5 million barrels to a release of as much as 30 million barrels, and even higher if coordinated with other countries, Bloomberg reported on Friday, quoting two people familiar with the plans. Iran’s OPEC representative Kazempour responded to this with an email, as carried […]