The Chinese government is so far showing no sign of curtailing its oil ties to Venezuela, despite state-owned PetroChina's rescheduling of Merey crude loadings in August. Argus has confirmed that state-owned PetroChina's trading arm ChinaOil rescheduled up to seven VLCCs of heavy sour Merey in August that had been set for delivery in October. Venezuela's political opposition and the White House swiftly seized on the move to declare that Beijing was abandoning the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro in response to US sanctions aimed at removing him. Chinese companies are indeed sensitive to potential blowback from the US financial and oil sanctions on Caracas.