At a State Council press briefing, Vice Minister of Transport Li Yang said a comprehensive assessment shows passenger flows over the Mid-Autumn holiday will be slightly above normal. Cross-regional movements are expected to total about 650 million trips, averaging roughly 220 million trips per day. Travel will be dominated by returning home and visiting relatives, with increased suburban and rural short-haul outings around cities.

Sept 24 — Doubao PR head Liu Xing said reports that the company conducted mass layoffs or halved its dialogue/Session team are false; the move was an internal reallocation of duties. Liu said portions of the general Session team’s functions were moved to Doubao’s trading and work teams and staff transferred with the functions; many continue prior work, including trading-related tasks to optimise trading dialogue experience. The Session team has fewer than 50 staff; the reorganisation affected 11 people and 3 have left. Liu said claims that Doubao, “used by 200 million people,” had carried out layoffs and that the dialogue team was “cut in half” are inaccurate.

US EIA crude stocks for the week ended Sep 18 rose 2.969 mln barrels versus an expected draw of 0.641 mln; the prior week showed a draw of 0.64 mln barrels.