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JAKARTA - CHINA and Indonesia will renegotiate a cut-price gas deal that is threatening multi-billion-dollar losses for the Southeast Asian country, Indonesia's top leaders said on Thursday.
China agreed to a request to revise the price paid for liquefied natural gas from the Tangguh gas block on predictions higher oil prices would cause Indonesia to lose US$75 billion (S$196 billion) over 25 years, Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters.
'The impact (of the deal) would be fatal given the current price,' he said. 'This is the worst contract in the history of Indonesian oil.'
The original agreement to sell 2.6 million tonnes of gas for an average US$3.35 per million British thermal units was made when oil was around US$25 per barrel, he said.
The oil price now is around US$118s, down from record highs above US$147 in July.
'We will have to struggle in negotiating the contract so that we don't make a loss,' President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.
The current deal would cover a contract period of 25 years starting in 2009. -- AFP
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