COLOMBO — Sri Lanka's fuel import bill is projected to exceed US$6 billion by the end of 2026 as the Middle East conflict keeps global oil prices high, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said, warning that managing the pressure on foreign exchange is now the country's main economic challenge.
Source: NationScope, Oct 24, 2026
US$6 billion — yaani roughly Rs 56,700 crore at about Rs 94.5 to the dollar — would be about half as much again as last year's bill. The president said Sri Lanka spent about US$4 billion on fuel imports last year and had already spent about US$4 billion in just the first eight months of this year, speaking at the 100th Annual Conference of the Government Surveyors' Association at the Waters Edge hotel in Battaramulla on October 23.
Source: NationScope, Oct 24, 2026
Giving more precise figures in separate remarks reported by Pulseline, Dissanayake said fuel imports cost US$4.442 billion in 2025 and had already reached US$4.482 billion by August 2026. Central Bank of Sri Lanka data reported earlier this month put fuel imports for January to August 2026 at US$4,072.1 million, up 61.6 per cent from US$2,520.6 million in the same period of 2025, with August alone costing US$450.6 million, up 76.5 per cent year on year.
Source: Pulseline.lk; Central Bank of Sri Lanka via Ceylon Wire, Oct 5, 2026
The surge shows how directly the Gulf war reaches South Asian economies that import almost all their fuel: Brent crude settled at a near six-month high of US$116.72 a barrel on Friday. Analysts writing on Sri Lanka's external sector noted that the merchandise trade deficit widened to US$7.2 billion in the first eight months of the year, from US$4.3 billion a year earlier, with fuel the major driver, even as the current account recorded a US$133 million surplus in August.
Source: LankaLeader analysis of Central Bank data, Oct 2026
Dissanayake said the government had not yet decided whether to seek another International Monetary Fund programme after the current four-year Extended Fund Facility ends, and that officials were assessing the country's resilience and future financing needs first. He said Sri Lanka's credit ratings had improved under the programme, but foreign reserves had not yet reached the level the government expects.
Source: Pulseline.lk, Oct 2026
For Sri Lanka, which defaulted in 2022 and is still rebuilding reserves, every sustained rise in oil prices competes directly with spending on food imports, debt payments and recovery — the same oil shock now squeezing households and transport costs across the region, including in India.