Gas giant Gazprom signed Russia's biggest-ever takeover on Wednesday, buying control of oil firm Sibneft for $13.1 billion from Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich. Abramovich, Russia's richest man, will be cashing in on a bargain buy made in the chaotic mid-1990s, making a windfall big enough to buy Chelsea's most expensive player, Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien, nearly 300 times over.
Gazprom will acquire 72.7 percent of Russia's No. 5 oil company - and with it 660,000 barrels per day in oil output - taking the world's largest gas firm a step closer to its goal of becoming a global energy super-major. The state-controlled gas monopoly will raise its total holding to 75.7 percent of Sibneft and thus ensure outright strategic control.
It will also secure the Kremlin control over a third of Russian oil, enabling Putin to use energy policy to project power and reassert some of the world influence Moscow lost after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.