Hopes Rise of a Thaw in Relations between BP and Russia ; ANALYSIS

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IT HAS NEVER been easy doing business in Siberia's oil and gas fields. But the biting winds that sweep across the frozen tundra are a minor problem compared with the air of malevolence that wafted towards BP from the Kremlin before new President Dmitry Medvedev took charge on Wednesday.

Under Vladimir Putin, Medvedev's predecessor and great ally, BP had felt the full force of Moscow's opprobrium to their joint venture, the third-largest oil production operation in Russia.

First, Slavneft, BP's Russian joint venture with Gazprom Neft, saw its offices raided in February in an alleged tax probe. Then in March the FSB successor to the KGB raided BP's …