Front-month fuel oil settled at 4,095 yuan/t, up 2.89% on the day, while bitumen printed 4,330 yuan/t, up 2.46%. The fuel-oil-to-bitumen spread (FO-BIT) has slipped to -235 yuan/t: fuel oil now trades 235 yuan below bitumen, a classic residue-routing signal inside the heavy-end chain.

Residue is the bottom cut of the atmospheric-vacuum unit, and it has only a few outlets: into the coker to become petroleum coke and gas oil, into very-low-sulfur fuel oil (VLSFO) bunker blends for bonded marine fuel, or straight into bitumen. When fuel oil sits below bitumen, refiners push more residue toward the coker and bunker blending rather than pressing it into asphalt.

IMO2020 caps marine fuel sulfur at 0.5%, making VLSFO a structural necessity. Winter heating demand in the northern hemisphere plus the peak shipping season put a floor under bunker blending demand and tighten the supply elasticity of coker feed.

For crude resellers, a negative FO-BIT means the "buy fuel oil, sell bitumen" crack no longer works cleanly, but residue absorption on the bunker side keeps the heavy-end chain from collapsing. The real profit dial is not the move in any single product; it is the marginal switch in residue yield allocation.