International Oil and Gas Contracts

OVERVIEW

The advanced nature of international oil and gas deals makes respective contracts a key link in the negotiation process chain. Errors and omissions in documents lead to tremendous extra cost for companies and endless disputes. Nothing is a better guarantee of a successful deal but a duly made and legally valid document!

Managers and legal staff are faced with a multitude of aspects and every one of them has importance in making international oil and gas contracts. To deal with that one has to monitor all recent developments to mitigate risks and secure target margin when the contract is performed. In this regard it is not only important to understand key and commonly used terms and conditions of international agreements but also be prepared to amend and alter those as needed.

This is a five-day workshop aimed at introducing you to the international oil and gas contracts. We discuss the structure of petroleum legislation and principals on which is based to provide fundamental understanding of the legal base for these contracts.  During the course we will focus on details of upstream contracts as parties, rights and obligations, budgets, taxes, cost s recovering, dispute resolutions and others.

 YOU WILL HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO:

• Gain knowledge of all current types of international upstream oil and gas contracts.
• Understand the legal principles of international oil and gas contracts.
• Consider the rights and obligations of the parties at each stage of contract.
• Understand how the different types of international contracts deal with the allocation of costs, production, revenues, and taxes.
• Identify and evaluate risks of contract conclusion.
• Explore the aspects of legal framework divergence when concluding contracts.

 THE COURSE IS DESIGNED FOR

• Representatives of oil and gas companies, legal firms and contracting organizations.
• Top managers, representatives of legal, commercial, financial and supply departments.
• Lawyers, economists, financiers, contract managers, procurement specialists, as well as operating issues managers

 Upon the completion of the course you will be issued the International Business House Certificate.

 Joint Operating Agreements

 Drilling contracts

COURSE INSTRUCTOR 

The Lecturer is Managing Partner of a boutique legal consultancy firm focused on providing commercial, corporate, regulatory and negotiation advice to companies operating in the international oil & gas sector.

Prior to establishing private consultancy firm he has been a partner at the London office of global law firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius, and of-counsel for another global firm, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. He founded and managed law practices on behalf of a joint venture of law firms Dewey Ballantine and Theodore Goddard, in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.

The Lecturer has also practised law as an in-house counsel (General Counsel of Guinness plc and, subsequently, Diageo plc.) and as a partner with a merchant bank (Babcock & Brown Limited). At Guinness/Diageo he assumed worldwide functional responsibility for the management of all legal affairs, across 202 jurisdictions, coordinating a staff of 119 people spread through 15 offices across the world, and was responsible for planning and implementing the $38bn merger of Guinness Plc with Grand Metropolitan Plc to form Diageo Plc, the world's largest food and drinks company.

He has advised on exploration, development, production, supply and sales activities in the oil, gas and minerals sectors; gas, coal and alternative source electrical power generation projects; gas pipeline and other natural resources sector related infrastructure projects. He has also been actively involved in joint ventures, joint operating agreements, strategic alliances, licensing arrangements, farm-in and farm-out agreements, off take and lifting agreements, royalty agreements, abandonment agreements, service agreements, transport agreements, the acquisition, disposal and financing of interests in the natural resource sector, and natural resource assets, and in capital raising activities and direct foreign investment in the natural resources sector.

The Lecturer was a member of the faculty at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum, and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee, and a part-time lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. Globally, he has presented numerous papers and conducted workshops in the fields of natural resources law, joint ventures and joint operating agreements and negotiation skills. His academic interests lie in the intersection of law and business, where he has concentrated on joint ventures/joint operating agreements and negotiation. He is a member of the Australian Mining and Petroleum Law Association, Energy Law Association Inc. (New Zealand), International Bar Association Section on Energy and Natural Resources Law, Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and United Kingdom Energy Lawyers Group.