Both crude benchmarks climbed again overnight. Brent settled at $113.50/bbl, up 2.44% on the day, while WTI closed at $102.91/bbl, up 0.89%. The two moved at different speeds: Brent was pulled by tight physical barrels in the Atlantic basin, whereas WTI lagged on ample US Gulf export loading capacity.

Converted to a landed RMB cost using the Brent x FX x 7.33 pricing convention, $113.50 x 6.6558 x 7.33 is about RMB 5,538/t. On the same day fuel oil sat at RMB 5,434/t, barely changed at -0.02%, and bitumen at RMB 5,304/t, up 1.92%. Products simply did not keep pace with feedstock, dragging the theoretical refinery crack toward the zero line.

Independent refiners react in the obvious way: they rebalance feedstock between coking and bunker blending. Fuel oil going flat signals tepid restocking for bonded bunkering, while bitumen's small gain is mostly year-end road-work support rather than demand-led strength. With feedstock expensive and products sluggish, margin repair depends on cutting intake cost or betting on a later product catch-up.

A stronger RMB (USD/CNY 6.6558, -0.0631) is the only cushion. The same barrel of Brent costs roughly 0.6% less in RMB than last month, so the import window stays open. But that cushion does not rescue the crack: when products fail to follow, the FX gain lands entirely on the cost side and the refiner stays squeezed from both ends.