Leaders promise to respect Bolivia's gas plan

South American leaders promised to respect Bolivia’s decision to nationalise its natural gas sector and agreed to negotiate future gas prices, hoping to defuse a crisis sparked by the Andean nation's petroleum industry takeover.

A day after Brazil’s state-owned petroleum company announced it was freezing investment in Bolivia because of the nationalisation decree, Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva suggested that Petrobras could reverse course after negotiations.