September gas oil swaps were quoted 30 cents below Friday at $48.60/$49.20 a barrel, while its September crack spread over Dubai weakened 30 cents to $12.36 a barrel.
"The Chinese are sniffing for barrels but the volumes are not big enough," a trader said.
Sinopec is seeking just 30,000 tonnes of spot gas oil for September, after skipping imports in August.
But other traders said China might seek more gas oil imports due to tight domestic supply.
Easier international gas oil prices and firmer Chinese retail levels have helped narrow the price gap between the imported price of the product and domestic prices, they said.
Physical gas oil prices lost almost six percent last week to fall under $50 a barrel.
Gas oil's September/October paper backwardation was steady at 45 cents a barrel.
The September regrade, or the price spread between jet-kerosene and gas oil, was pegged at $3.00/$3.20 a barrel, mostly unchanged from Friday.
Brokers valued September fuel oil paper at $188.75/$189.75 a tonne, down from $190.00/$190.50 on Friday.
Fuel oil's September crack to Dubai was unchanged at minus $7.40 a barrel.
Traders said the longer fuel oil held below $190 a tonne, the more players might be enticed to buy.
Supplies, particularly for 380-centistoke cargoes, are tight in the first half of September.
One reason is a delay of about a week in the arrival of the month's single-largest supply of fuel oil to Asia.
US-based Koch Refining's ultra large crude carrier, TI Europe - carrying 420,000 tonnes of cargo from the Baltics - is due to arrive in Singapore on September 10-12 instead of early September due to logistical problems.
London's International Petroleum Exchange is closed for a public holiday on Monday.
NYMEX crude for October delivery inched up six cents at $43.24 a barrel by 0530 GMT, having settled up eight cents in New York on Friday.