The petro.yuan is the main bet of Rusia and China

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez- RT

Instead of humiliating Russia, the 'economic war' promoted by Washington and Brussels was counterproductive, as it only helped to strengthen the energy dumbbell between Moscow and Beijing. Recall that in May 2014 the Russian company Gazprom undertook to guarantee the supply of gas to China for up to 38 billion cubic meters per year during the next three decades (from 2018) by signing a contract for 400,000 billion dollars with the National Petroleum Corporation of China (CNPC).

Nowadays both powers coordinate the work of an ambitious plan of strategic projects that includes the construction of gas pipelines and pipelines, rather than the joint operation of refineries and large petrochemical complexes. Unwittingly, Moscow's rapprochement with Beijing produced profound transformations in the world oil market in favor of the East, dramatically undermining the influence of Western oil companies.

Moscow and Beijing have made their oil exchanges a channel of transition towards a multipolar monetary system

Even Saudi Arabia, which until recently remained the main oil supplier of the Asian giant, has been plagued by Kremlin diplomacy. While oil exports from Saudi Arabia to China have been increasing at a rate of 120,000 barrels per day since 2011, Russia's oil exports at a rate of 550,000 barrels a day, or almost five times as fast, In fact, in 2015, Russian companies were able to exceed four times the oil sales of their Saudi counterparts to China: Riyadh had to settle for being the second largest supplier of crude in Beijing in May, September, November and December. 

It should be noted that the countries that make up the European core have also seen their market share decline vis-à-vis the Asian region: Germany, for example, was supplanted by China at the end of 2015 as the largest buyer of Russian oil. Thus, large investors operating in the world oil market can hardly give credit for how, in a few months, the main claimant (China) became the favorite customer of the third largest producer (Russia). According to the vice president of Transneft (the Russian company in charge of the implementation of the national pipelines), Sergei Andronov, China is willing to import a total volume of 27 million tons of oil from Russia throughout 2016.

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The Russian-Chinese energy alliance has set out to go further. Moscow and Beijing have made their oil exchanges a channel of transition to a multi-polar monetary system, ie one that is not based solely on the dollar, but takes into account several currencies and above all, reflects the correlation of forces of the present world order. The economic sanctions imposed by Washington and Brussels encouraged the Russians to eliminate the dollar and the euro from their commercial and financial transactions, otherwise they would be too exposed to sabotage when buying and selling transactions with its main partners. 

For that reason since the middle of 2015 the hydrocarbons that China buys to Russia are paid in yuan, not in dollars, information that has been confirmed by senior executives of Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Gazprom. This encourages the use of "people's currency" (renminbi) in the world oil market while allowing Russia to neutralize the economic offensive launched by the United States and the European Union. The foundations of a new financial order based on petroyuan are emerging: the Chinese currency is poised to become the hub of Asia-Pacific trade with the major oil powers.

(to be continued)

https://actualidad.rt.com/opinion/ariel-noyola-rodriguez/207076-petroyuan-gran-apuesta-rusia-china