'From petro-dollar to petro-yuan?'

This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed "From petro-dollar to petro-yuan?" carried by the newspaper yesterday. The writer, M. Ziauddin, has argued, among other things, that "Indeed, China is likely to try to seek to displace dollar by the end of current year by forcing yuan-denomination of specific commodities, marking a cataclysmic shift in the world financial order that's been in place since World War II. For example, if China switched from dollars to yuan to pay its oil-sector suppliers, it would eliminate annual dollar demand in such contracts by $876billion, leading to historic depreciation of dollar."
Eliminating annual dollar demand in oil contracts, however, may not be easy because of a variety of reasons. But China can effectively curtail the historic dollar hegemony on oil contracts. China, for example, started its long-anticipated crude oil futures contracts that are priced in yuan and convertible into gold in August this year. China became world's largest crude oil importer after it surpassed US oil imports last year. But the first half of the 21st century still belongs to US dollar, not Chinese yuan or any other currency.