Both crude benchmarks rose on Oct 18. Brent settled at $109.928, up 3.78 on the day; WTI at $101.846, up 3.96. In dollar terms it was a broad rally, but the landed duty-paid cost for domestic buyers has to fold the exchange rate into the math.

USD/CNY closed at 6.687, with the yuan about 0.7% stronger against the dollar. Crude is priced in dollars and settled in RMB on delivery, so the firmer yuan clawed back nearly 0.8 percentage points of the crude gain. The RMB-denominated landed cost of Brent actually rose only about 3.0%, not the 3.78% on the surface.

That means the import arbitrage window did not fully close on this rally. If refiners and traders keep their forward-hedging books current, feedstock economics look steadier than a dollar-only quote suggests. The posted base price (Brent x FX x 7.33 x grade) moved up too, but the exchange rate flattened its slope.