Russia's independent oil company OAO Lukoil (LKOH.RS, LUKOY) has approached Libya's Arabian Gulf Oil Co. to supply fuel products in exchange for future crude production, one official at the Libyan company said recently.

It is one of the first known attempts by a company from a nation that didn't support the new regime to clinch oil deals with Libya and comes after one official said all countries still had their opportunities with Tripoli .

"Lukoil is trying to enter through marketing oil products" to state-owned company Agoco-which operates in Eastern Libya , the official said. The idea would be to get Libyan crude in return, the official said, adding it made a proposal to this effect late September.

Spokespeople for Lukoil and its oil trading unit Litasco declined to comment.

Russia and China --among others--have been criticized by Libya 's National Transitional Council after opposing an intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization supporting the rebels' war against Moammar Gadhafi.

Having toppled the old regime, the NTC has now said it would be reluctant to sign up new deals with those countries that hadn't back them and would favor those that had--such as France, the U.K. and Qatar.

"It's not a done deal," the Agoco official said. "For the Russians, it will be difficult."

The news comes after Mustafa El-Huni, an NTC member with responsibility for oil, hinted in an interview last month that the door was not closed for countries that opposed the NATO intervention.

The first criteria for oil deals will be "who is making the best offer," El-Huni said. But "if the companies are equal, we will have to think which countries helped us."

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