The meeting between Iran and Gulf Arab states on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, scheduled for Monday in Oman, has been postponed, removing the week’s main prospect of a diplomatic break in the crisis pushing oil above US$100 a barrel.

Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi announced the postponement late Sunday, saying it was “in the interests of consensus” and adding that Oman remained “committed to fostering dialogue that supports stability and lasting cooperation in our region,” Al Jazeera reported.

Iran’s Fars news agency, cited by Hiru News, quoted a foreign ministry official saying the delay came at the request of some regional countries and was a joint decision by Tehran and Muscat. Iran said it would coordinate with Oman on a new date. None has been set.

Iranian officials had said they would attend to present an agreement reached with Oman on governing shipping routes through the strait; one objective was to agree maps for transit routes. Bahrain had already said it would not take part. The United States, the decisive party to any reopening, was not to be represented.

This closes an open question from our report on Friday, which noted that no Gulf state had publicly confirmed attendance.

Oil rises again

Prices jumped more than 2% as markets reopened on Monday. Crude passed US$100 last week for the first time since July, and US retail diesel rose on Sunday to another record above US$6.20 a gallon.

Saudi Arabia kept its 1,200km east-west pipeline — the main route for Middle East oil that bypasses Hormuz entirely — shut through the weekend after drone strikes damaged it on Friday. Traders and Saudi buyers told Reuters that Riyadh holds enough oil at its Red Sea port of Yanbu to sustain exports for only five to seven days if the line stays closed. Beyond that, as much as 4% of global oil supply could be at risk, on top of the volumes already lost to disrupted Hormuz traffic.

Riyadh has not detailed the damage or given a restart date. Estimates relayed to Reuters for the repair range from days to weeks, and satellite images have shown large columns of smoke along the pipeline route.

Shipping risk in the strait itself continued. The British maritime agency UKMTO said a vessel was struck by a projectile while transiting Hormuz on Sunday, causing a fire and forcing the crew to evacuate; Iran said one person was killed and four crew wounded aboard an Iranian commercial vessel struck off its coast. The postponement came within hours of that attack.

No reopening without Washington

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told the pan-Arab outlet Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed that whatever is agreed with Oman, Iran will not reopen the strait until the United States meets Tehran’s demands — which places the ceiling on what the postponed meeting could have achieved.

Seven months after the US and Israel launched “Operation Epic Fury” in February, none of its stated objectives has been met. President Donald Trump, on a weekend visit to Ireland, repeated that he expects the war to end this year, possibly just after November’s US midterm elections, after which petrol prices would “drop like a rock.”

Why it matters for Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka imports effectively all its crude and refined fuel, and sustained prices above US$100 feed directly into the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation’s costs. Private fuel distributors have already asked the government to restore cost-reflective pricing, citing losses they put at around Rs. 170 a litre, while the CPC has said there will be no sudden price increase. Tanker freight and war-risk insurance have both risen sharply, and the industry is now planning for a conflict lasting years.

Not reported

Neither account says which regional countries asked for the delay, nor whether the postponement is a scheduling matter or a breakdown. Neither states how much Saudi production is currently offline, what proportion of Sri Lanka’s own supply arrives via Hormuz, or what a sustained US$100-plus crude price is costing the Treasury — a question this desk has now raised across several reports without an answer from any authority.