In an insightful column in the Moscow Times today, Matthew Hulbert takes a look at the recent BP reshuffle and how it might play out on the Russian market. Here’s an excerpt:

 [I]f BP is to survive, it must surely look beyond the United States, where it will struggle to maintain concessions, let alone secure new contracts. It must look toward the markets of tomorrow. This, of course, raises a thorny question: Is [Robert] Dudley, who was raised in Mississippi, the right man to navigate global markets in jurisdictions such as Libya, Colombia, Angola and Algeria, or merely the guy who knows how to sweet-talk the White House into taking its foot off BP’s neck?

Russia might well provide an answer here. Before being shipped back to the United States, Dudley had been walking a tightrope to ensure that BP remained part of the TNK-BP equation. Many in Moscow thought that Gazprom would be a better partner than TNK-BP to develop Kovykta, one of the country’s largest undeveloped natural gas fields in East Siberia.