2026 is a year of "tight domestic supply and shifting external dynamics" for China’s bitumen market. Different from previous years when the market simply followed crude oil fluctuations, the dominant logic of this year’s market has undergone a fundamental shift: geopolitical shocks on the supply side have become a more influential variable than crude oil costs.Persistent tensions in the Middle East have disrupted imports of heavy crude oil and bitumen, tightening domestic resource supply.      Meanwhile, policy expectations for the launch of the 15th Five Year Plan have delivered marginal support to the demand side. Against this backdrop, bitumen prices have exhibited independent elasticity divergent from crude oil, and the market is marked by distinct features of contracting supply, steadily rising demand, and a reversed import export pattern.

     Although bitumen demand in 2026 will see no explosive growth, it is underpinned by solid rigid demand and generally maintains a "moderate growth on a stable base" trend. Road infrastructure remains the core demand driver, accounting for over 92 % of bitumen consumption. Annual bitumen demand is projected at approximately 32.5 million metric tons, a modest year on year increase of 1.5 %. Demand is mainly fueled by two factors: first, ongoing infrastructure projects across multiple

domestic regions, including trunk highway upgrades and rural road renovations; second, existing roads entering a concentrated maintenance cycle, unlocking maintenance related demand.

      In terms of trade structure, import sources are shifting from "Middle East dominated" back toward South Korea, while export markets are evolving from sporadic shipments toward large scale deployment in Southeast Asia. Should this trend persist, it will exert structural impacts on the global positioning of China’s bitumen industry.

    Hosted by Enmore, the 2026 (20th) China Bitumen Trading Conference will take place in Guangzhou China on November 4–5. The conference builds a professional platform for resource docking, technical exchanges and industrial cooperation, catering to domestic and overseas bitumen manufacturers, import and export traders, domestic distributors, modified bitumen producers, construction enterprises and highway authorities, waterproof bitumen suppliers, as well as logistics, storage, packaging and other third-party industrial service providers.