When one of the world's richest men, Roman Abramovich, flew half way across the world to meet Linc Energy chief executive Peter Bond in 2012, many thought it could not get any better for the up-and-coming rich-lister.

Less than a year later, Mr Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club and valued at the time by Forbes Magazine at $US10.2 billion, had signed a deal to explore adopting Linc Energy's so-called groundbreaking underground coal gasification technology at Chinchilla in south-west Queensland to north-eastern Russia.