Oil and Gas
Our oil, gas, and resources clients draw on the experience of a global team, including our world-class global practices in LNG and other product development, marketing, and trading capabilities.
A multitude of lawyers from our energy, maritime, regulatory, environmental, project finance, construction, public-private partnerships, public policy, corporate, litigation, and arbitration practices work seamlessly across the firm’s global platform to provide services from project concept to completion and throughout the operational life span of oil and gas and LNG facilities.
Our team has worked on proposed and operational projects in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, South America, Russia, the Middle East, and the United States.
Clients that we advise include international oil companies (IOCs); national oil companies (NOCs); trading houses; exporters and importers; cooperatives; utilities; pipeline companies; investors; lenders and host governments; upstream, midstream, and downstream project developers; terminal operators and capacity holders; as well as contractors and suppliers to the global oil, gas, and LNG industries.
Our services include negotiating project entity structures and project participation agreements; project finance; project siting, construction, and development; structuring the acquisition, operation and maintenance of facilities; and negotiating construction, supply, transportation, capacity, and offtake agreements.
Capabilities
Upstream
We provide legal representation to nearly any type of business involved in the identification, extraction, and production of raw materials. These include major oil companies, independent exploration and production companies, oil and gas field operators, and drilling and service companies, along with suppliers of oilfield equipment and technology. Additionally, we work with owners, operators, and constructors of all types of onshore and offshore infrastructure; facilities and equipment for the development and extraction of hydrocarbons—including onshore and offshore drilling; production and gathering facilities; onshore and floating LNG and NGL facilities; and FPSOs.
Offshore Platforms And Maritime Oil And Gas Facilities
Our oil and gas maritime practice is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team of lawyers located across the globe who focus in the areas of policy, regulatory, transactional, and dispute resolution. Together, our maritime and construction teams have decades of experience handling contract negotiation, administration, and disputes involving floating and offshore drilling; subsea infrastructure, production; storage; handling; and pipeline facilities, including FPSOs, FLNG facilities, and undersea pipeline facilities. We have worked on numerous matters involving vessel construction, vessel financing, EPC contracting, bareboat charters, time charters, and the disputes and insurance claims that arise from offshore oil and gas operations and maritime activities. With respect to maritime construction disputes, we have significant experience across our global platform, but particularly in our offices in London, the Middle East, the Asia Pacific region, Houston, and Washington D.C.
Midstream
Multinational businesses operating in all aspects of marketing, sale, shipment, transportation, handling, and processing of oil and gas and hydrocarbon products—including LNG and NGLs—turn to our team for counsel on a wide variety of matters. We have assisted our clients on commodity marketing and trading matters (including hedging and derivative transactions); the development, construction, and operation of pipelines, processing and storage facilities and other midstream infrastructure; and acquiring, constructing, chartering, and financing of FPSOs, floating midstream facilities and other seagoing vessels used to handle and transport crude oil and hydrocarbon products.
Our policy and regulatory compliance team brings an up-to-date perspective on the regulatory and governmental policy issues involved in processing, transporting, and exporting oil and gas and petroleum products. We maintain in-depth insight on policies such as the evolving U.S. DOE policy on petroleum exports, U.S. FERC regulation of the natural gas business, and the EU’s restrictions on trade and competition of the oil and gas business, as well as on the changing local investment, fiscal, and regulatory regimes in important emerging economies.
Downstream
We represent players engaged in the refining, marketing and distribution of LNG, NGLs, petrochemicals and other hydrocarbon products all over the world. We represent clients acquiring, developing, redeveloping, and operating greenfield and brownfield refineries, LNG liquefaction facilities, LNG and NGL export terminals, and other types of processing, storage, discharge, or distribution facilities relating to hydrocarbon products.
Liquefied Natural Gas
As a result of our global platform, we have a tremendous grasp of the commercial complexity of the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) business. Our multidisciplinary LNG team offers unique, practical, and up-to-date insights into the economic underpinnings of LNG transactions, taking into account the contractual, regulatory, financial, and risk frameworks at play in permitting and operating LNG projects around the world. Lawyers from our energy, regulatory, environmental, maritime, project finance, construction, public policy, and other disciplines work seamlessly across the firm to provide value-added services from project conceptualization to completion and throughout the operational life of LNG facilities. Our LNG team not only brings superb outside legal skills to LNG projects and business operations, but we also possess extensive practical and commercial experience gained from working within the LNG and maritime industries and the governmental and regulatory agencies that set and implement the evolving framework of policies that impact the development and operation of LNG facilities.
Litigation
Strategically located in the major centers of the industry, our complex commercial litigation and disputes lawyers actively advise clients across the global oil and gas industry and all oilfield service and supply sectors. In the United States, we have advised numerous clients, including ConocoPhillips, Range Resources, and Scout Energy in the Permian and Marcellus shale basins on royalty claims. We are familiar with the range of risk mitigation problems and disputes that arise in the oil and gas business onshore and offshore, and in the maritime, construction, and other supporting service and supply industries. Our team also stands ready to assist clients with crisis management, should the need arise. Whether a government enforcement investigation or a natural disaster, we have a multidisciplinary team to help navigate the unfamiliar waters of any major crisis. Our world-class intellectual property and trademark protection team understands the advanced technologies that are essential to enhancing the extraction and processing of oil and gas and hydrocarbon products and regularly advises on the protection of intellectual property rights around the world.
Construction And Project Development
Our oil and gas construction, project development, and project finance teams understand how the elements of upstream, midstream, and downstream oil and gas deals must fit together in order to make an integrated, viable, and financeable oil and gas project. Based on that experience, these teams add practical value to the development and construction of projects from the earliest days of project conceptualization, into the front-end engineering and design process, through the negotiation of EPC contracts, in planning and implementing project and conventional financing, and in responding to and administering claims, arbitrations, and other construction-related disputes.
