The premium of fuel oil over bitumen that built up during the afternoon session was given back by the night session. The 23:04 snapshot has fuel oil front-month at 4,775 yuan, down 0.44% on the day, and bitumen at 4,485 yuan, down 0.53%. Both lines moving down together signals cooling end-use demand across the residue complex rather than a rotation of money between the two contracts.

On the bitumen side, road construction is entering its low season; modified-bitumen liftings in East and South China fell close to 10% week on week. On the fuel-oil side, the bonded-bunker restocking pulse that drove the afternoon bid faded; Zhoushan and Ningbo bunker schedules are now booked into the second half of the month, and the spot discount stopped compressing.

For independent refiners the amount of vacuum residue is fixed. The coking unit wants more residue to push out gasoline and diesel, while bonded bunkering competes for the same straight-run residue as a blendstock. As one demand cools and the other pauses, coker run rate becomes the control valve. Today's joint decline nudged residue yield back toward the coking side, and the fuel-oil/bitumen spread widened from 275 yuan to 290 yuan; a small move but a change in direction.

The operational read: do not lock bunker term volumes off the afternoon fuel-oil strength. With road seasonality plus a paused restocking pulse, the residue complex is soft near term. For those holding bitumen shorts, watch coker run rate as the leading indicator; once it lifts, residue flows back to coking and bitumen's supply pressure eases first.