Brent futures were last up 2.6 per cent at $107.36 a barrel, having risen around 9 per cent last week

Share markets slid in Asia on Monday as supply concerns caused oil prices to spike anew, while investors braced for possible interest rate hikes in Japan this week.

Brent jumped 3 per cent as new ​strikes on Saudi Arabia and on ships in the Gulf tested nerves, after an attack on ​a Saudi oil pipeline and an advance by Houthis threatened to worsen the wartime disruption to global energy supplies.

A meeting ‌in Oman between Iran and Gulf Arab states, scheduled for Monday to discuss a deal on opening the Strait of Hormuz, was postponed.

With shipping through the strait and the Bab el-Mandeb under threat, analysts fear oil prices could stay higher for a lengthy period, stoking inflation globally.

Brent futures were last up 2.6 per cent at $107.36 a barrel, having risen around 9 per cent last week, while US crude gained 2.4 per cent to $102.48 a barrel.

Nikkei dropped 1.7 per cent, while South Korea declined 3.3 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid 0.8 per cent.

Markets imply around a 76 per cent chance the Bank of Japan will lift its cash rate by a quarter point, to 1.25 per cent, ‌when it meets on Friday. The BOJ is also expected to sound hawkish on further tightening as it struggles to prevent a relapse in the yen after market intervention helped to pull it from a 40-year low.

In Europe, EUROSTOXX 50 futures shed 0.5 per cent, while DAX futures declined 0.4 per cent and FTSE futures slipped 0.1 per cent. On Wall Street, S&P 500 futures shed 0.5 per cent, while Nasdaq futures slid 1.1 per cent.