Twelve Days After Araghchi Said the Oman Talks Were Final, Bloomberg Reports There Is Still No Accord

Bloomberg, in a market file dated 14 August, states that Iran and Oman have yet to reach an accord to reopen the waterway, after optimism earlier in the week that an agreement was near. That is a reversal of tone from 2 August, when Al Jazeera reported a Telegram post by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi describing talks with Muscat as “on the way to being finalised” and in their “final stages,” and ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said the two sides were close to agreement on a new maritime route through Hormuz, separate from existing corridors. Araghchi has been consistent on the limit: on 9 August, via ABC News and Iranian state media, he said an agreement with Oman does not mean the strait will be reopened, alleged continued US violations of a June memorandum of understanding — which, per CBS News, provides for a 60-day period of free transit — and said negotiations cannot resume until Washington compensates for those violations. Axios reported on 5 August, citing unnamed regional sources, that Araghchi had agreed in principle over the weekend but still needed sign-off from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and the Supreme National Security Council, with calls between US envoy Steve Witkoff, Araghchi and Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi.

The numbers being used to describe the closure are weaker than they look. CNN’s Friday live file reports 56 reports of damage to vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and nearby waters since the war began on 28 February, excluding two attacks reported on Thursday — but attributes the tally only to “the report,” without naming the publisher. The same file records one Iranian-flagged ship inbound and one outbound through Hormuz in the past seven days, with Panama and Liberia the most common transiting flags. NBC’s traffic tracker, last updated 12 August, notes that traffic fell back after a brief pick-up and writes in the past tense: “Twenty percent of the world’s natural gas and oil used to pass through the strait.” Trading Economics reports that US officials say American forces are expanding escort capacity while some tankers are switching off transponders — which degrades every transit count in circulation. Lloyd’s List Intelligence’s 5 August brief carries two irreconcilable weekly counts for 27 July to 2 August; this desk is not publishing either until the vessel universe is defined.

Assessment: Tehran’s position has not moved and does not need to: a route agreement with Muscat and a reopening of the strait are being kept deliberately separate, which lets Iran bank a diplomatic deliverable while retaining the closure as leverage. Note what the Oman track is not — it is not a US–Iran negotiation, and Araghchi says so. Distrust three things today: unnamed “regional sources” describing an in-principle Iranian yes; any transit or damage figure whose publisher is unidentified; and the Brent price itself, where Friday’s quotes span roughly $87 to $88.38 and one outlet put the benchmark above $90 the day before.