Shanghai fuel oil settled at ¥5,295/t, up just ¥5.31 — no strong directional driver from the screen, but the real shift is on the bonded-bunkering side. Zhoushan keeps chasing transshipment tonnage, and the VLSFO discount to Singapore has not widened further, which tells you domestic bunkering prices still pull vessels in to top up.

The squeeze comes from the fuel mix itself. Methanol and LNG keep pushing into the bonded-bunkering pilot, and a slice of the fleet that once burned HSFO has switched to dual fuel. That is not demand vanishing — it is the same hull gaining more fuel options, forcing a rewrite of how bonded tanks and refinery residue-blending lines split their allocations.

A firmer yuan at 6.668 trimmed the dollar-denominated delivered cost of imported heavy oil, repricing the gap between bonded and domestic grades. Independent refiners keep shifting residue among coking, bunker blending and road bitumen, chasing whichever spread is widest; today's crack environment makes that arbitrage easier than last month.