EUR/CNY closed at 7.4865 and EUR/USD at 1.1222, both crosses slipping together as the euro softened against a basket. USD/CNY at 6.6734 fell just 0.02%, so the dollar as a whole was not weak — this is the euro under pressure on its own, not a soft-dollar story.

Euro-settled transfer contracts must reprice their landed cost. At Brent USD 111.987, the euro-denominated landed price works out to about EUR 99.7/bbl (divided by 1.1222); the premium over the dollar figure is pure FX friction. Routing through CIPS euro direct-clearing instead of the two-step dollar-settle-then-convert cuts one conversion and one SWIFT hop, pulling settlement from T+2 to T+1.

In practice, euro-zone refiners prefer local-currency settlement. SNSUC runs CIPS euro direct-clearing to skip the dollar leg's compliance review and collapse the FX exposure from three steps (dollar to RMB to euro) to one (euro to RMB). An NDF locks the remaining euro receivable, closing most of the gap.