ROMAN ABRAMOVICH, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, could soon find himself with billions more to spend if a Kremlin-backed deal to buy his oil company is successful.

Analysts and investors believe that a sale of Sibneft, the company controlled by Mr Abramovich, is imminent. Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly that supplies a quarter of Europe’s gas, is currently arranging the country’s biggest loan to finance a takeover in the face of possible contest from Rosneft, a state-owned oil company.

The record $10 billion (£5.5 billion) loan for Gazprom’s putative bid is being arranged by ABN Amro and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. ABN and Dresdner are also reportedly among a consortium of other banks negotiating financing for a bid from Rosneft.

Rosneft and Gazprom have clashed previously, when Rosneft thwarted Gazprom’s plans to expand into oil production when it bought the main production unit of the oil giant Yukos last year.

The Kremlin has previously indicated that it is seeking to regain control of Russia’s lucrative oil industry. In recent years President Vladimir Putin has stepped up pressure on the oligarchs, who accumulated vast fortunes during the privatisations of the 1990s.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former head of Yukos, was jailed in May on fraud and tax-evasion charges after he fell out with Mr Putin. Yukos was dismantled and eventually acquired by Rosneft.

Mr Abramovich is believed to be eager for the bidding process to be resolved before campaigning begins later this year for the parliamentary elections.

Christopher Weafer, the chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow, said: “It’s pretty clear that Abramovich wants to sell out as soon as he can. The longer he leaves it the more politicised the deal could become.”

Sibneft, which has more than six billion barrels of oil in reserve, is valued at more than $17 billion. The sale of Sibneft to either Gazprom or Rosneft will mean that BP, through its joint venture with TNK, will be in business with the Kremlin.

ABN Amro and Dresdner declined to comment.

OIL PRICES CONTINUE RETREAT FROM PEAKS

The slide in oil prices came after slowing fuel demand in America and a jump in US inflation fuelled nervousness among traders over the economic toll from record energy costs.