The Chinese oil and gas company PetroChina reportedly settled a trade using the nation's central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper China Daily was first to report the news.

According to reports, PetroChina purchased a million barrels of crude at the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX), and e-CNY was used to settle the deal.

The SHPGX did not identify the seller or the deal's value in its announcement from Friday.

A translated version of the announcement stated the following:

“The Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government issued work requirements…The Shanghai Oil and Gas Trading Center responded to the call and actively promoted the embedding of digital renminbi in cross-border renminbi payments when expanding international oil and gas trade transactions."

Seven years after the People's Bank of China first began working on the project in 2014, the first digital yuan was produced in 2021.

According to reports from April, Changshu, a city in the Jiangsu province of East China, paid its employees in the CBDC.

The Asian nation has been increasing its efforts towards incorporating the CBDC and creating use cases for it.

The People's Bank of China first incorporated the CBDC in its official cash reports at the beginning of this year.

China is one of the few nations with a fully operational CBDC, and according to a survey by the Bank of International Settlements, 93% of central banks said they are considering "some form" of a CBDC.

Sources:

https://blockworks.co/news/china-digital-yuan-oil

https://www.shpgx.com/html/zxdt/20231020/5555.html