China's retail product price ceiling tracks a ten-working-day moving average, not daily swings. Over the current pricing cycle Brent has pulled back from its highs to around $91.81/bbl, dragging the average lower and tilting the gasoline and diesel adjustment toward a cut. The exact size settles when the window opens, but the direction is set.

Bonded bunkering runs on a separate ledger. It falls under two-ends-outside bonded supervision and carries no consumption tax, fully decoupled from the domestic product tax structure. So even when inland gasoline and diesel shift with the pricing window, the bonded bunkering cost curve stands alone, insulated from inland price caps and excise.

For transshipment and bunkering this isolation matters. Crude is priced in dollars and settled in CNY on delivery, so the exchange rate (USD/CNY 6.6697) and the crude flat jointly set cost; the bonded tax leg is already locked into the exempt channel, leaving operators to watch only the crude and FX lines.

On the policy front, the extension of bonded bunkering pilots for green marine fuels (methanol, LNG) shifts the voyage-cost structure from a single VLSFO competition to a multi-fuel race, with hubs like Zhoushan racing to set standards and capture transit voyages.