Even though it was past noon, the weather at winter's end had carried into the meeting room, chilling bones. Two weeks ago, Susilo Siswoutomo sat facing Zhang Zhinan, the executive vice governor of Fujian who handles energy-related matters. Susilo, the Indonesian Deputy Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources was on an important mission to raise the price of Tangguh gas being sold to China.

Since 2006, such attempts to renegotiate the price of