The meeting was attended by CPI president director Albert Simanjuntak, Chevron Asia Pacific Exploration and Production president Melody Meyer, Chevron Indo Asia managing director Chuck Taylor and CPI senior vice president for policy, government and public affairs Yanto Sianipar.

According to Yanto, the company is planning to file a court review into the case. "We expressed our hope to Pak Kalla that the legal process runs objectively. About 7,000 of our employees in the field are facing uncertainty right now," he told reporters at the vice presidential palace.

The Supreme Court recently rejected an appeal in the bioremediation case filed by Bachtiar Abdul Fatah, a CPI employee. Bachtiar appealed an earlier verdict that found him guilty of corruption and sentenced him to four years in prison and slapped him with a Rp 200 million (US$16,553) fine.

The court increased Bachtiar's sentence by two years.

The case started in 2003, when CPI launched an environmental conservation project using metabolic microorganisms to remove pollutants in its working area in Riau.

In 2006, the company appointed PT Sumigita Jaya and PT Green Planet to move contaminated soil to the bioremediation facilities. It paid $6.9 million to Sumigita for the project.

CPI then asked the government to reimburse the payment it had made to Sumigita.

Under the current production sharing contract system, the government will reimburse oil and gas contractors' spending if the blocks they operate are fruitful.

However, prosecutors said that by using environmental analysis, they found that none of the locations Sumigita worked on were contaminated by oil and argued that the government reimbursed the cost for nothing.

Meanwhile, Kalla said that the new administration would look into the matter, but provided no details on it.(+++)

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