The move is the latest in China and other authoritarian nations' attempts to move away from the American dollar as the default global currency.
According to The Business Times, China National Offshore Oil Corporation and France's TotalEnergies traded 65,000 tonnes of liquified natural gas imported from the United Arab Emirates. The deal was completed via the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange, which has vowed to strengthen the financial infrastructure needed to facilitate Yuan-based trades.
China National Offshore Oil Corporation is one of the largest energy company's in the nation, and its CEO Yu Jin has proposed conducting more deals in Yuan, rather than US dollars.
As Reuters reports, China has also worked to boost its position on the global energy stage by partnering with Saudi Arabia-based Aramco. The kingdom's company announced plans this week to upgrade a planned joint venture in northeast China and acquire a $3.6 billion stake in Rongsheng Petrochemical Co Ltd.
Under the terms of the deal, Aramco will send nearly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Rongsheng-controlled Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp for a period of twenty years.
Chinese president Xi Jinping met with Saudi leaders in December and pitched a move away from the petrodollar to a petroyuan.
The US dollar has gone through turbulent times as of late, slowly falling from grace as the default currency for global trade.
Human Events' Jack Posobiec warned earlier this year of the impending collapse, suggesting that Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and China could make it happen if they collectively stopped trading in American currency.
According to US Global Investors, however, the US dollar still has a firm hold on first place, and any change will likely take a long time to come about.
