Ahead of the night session, Brent stood at $97.48/bbl and WTI at $92.34/bbl, down $2.73 and $2.40 respectively. The moves look even, but on a Chinese buyer's delivered-and-dutied basis the currency swing does the heavy lifting.

The yuan closed at 6.7125 per dollar, up 372 pips. Crude is priced in dollars while duties settle in yuan; every one-pip gain in the yuan shaves roughly RMB 7.3 million off the landed cost of a 1-million-barrel ESPO cargo. Two forces pointing the same way reopened the import arbitrage that was shut a week ago.

On the spread, Brent-WTI held near $5.15, so U.S. Gulf cargoes bound for Asia still carry freight drag. The divergence in premiums between Middle East sour grades (Dubai/Oman) and Russian grades (ESPO/Urals) lets transshipment desks shift procurement from the U.S. West Coast to the Near East and shorten the laycan window.

For the desk, today's print is buyer-friendly: lower landed cost plus a firmer yuan means less margin tied up on the same parcel. Volatility has not fallen, so lock the price through a bonded warehouse receipt rather than chasing the flat price on a naked position.