Practice Areas
Project Finance
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February 22, 2012
Enviros Sue EPA Over Shell's Alaskan Drilling Permits
A coalition of environmental groups launched a suit Tuesday in the Ninth Circuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its decision to allow Royal Dutch Shell PLC to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, challenging one of the first off-shore drilling permits to be issued after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
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February 22, 2012
Q&A With Orrick's Dan Mathews
Our federal government has been paralyzed over infrastructure issues for the past several years, but the states need greater clarity about the availability of federal funding to build and maintain their highway network, says Daniel Mathews, co-chairman of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP's energy and infrastructure group.
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February 22, 2012
NovaGold Seeks Buyer For $2.6B Copper Mine Stake
Canadian miner NovaGold Resources Inc. said Wednesday it was moving ahead with plans to sell its 50 percent stake in a $5.2 billion Canadian copper mine to focus on an Alaska project thought to hold one of the world's biggest untapped gold deposits.
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February 22, 2012
Mitsubishi Invests $280M In Southeast Asia Energy Deal
Mitsubishi Corp. has reached a $280 million joint venture agreement with Canadian company Talisman Energy Inc. to develop nine natural gas projects in Papua New Guinea, Talisman said Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
Centrica To Pay $388M For Total's Oil, Gas Assets
Centrica PLC, parent company of British Gas, has agreed to acquire French oil company Total SA's oil and gas assets in the central North Sea for £246 million ($388 million) as part of its strategy to increase oil reserves and cash flow, Centrica announced Wednesday.
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February 22, 2012
Power Co. Triumphs In High Court Ruling On Navigable Waters
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled PPL Montana LLC doesn't have to pay some $49 million to Montana for operating hydroelectric plants on its riverbeds, unanimously rejecting a state court's ruling that rivers with waterfalls and other "interruptions" were navigable.
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February 21, 2012
Wells Fargo To Buy BNP Paribas Energy Loan Unit
Wells Fargo Bank NA has agreed to buy BNP Paribas SA's reserve-based energy lending business, which has about $9.5 billion in loan commitments and $3.9 billion in outstanding loans, the banks said Tuesday.
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February 21, 2012
Phosphate Co. Mosaic Settles Fla. Mine Expansion Dispute
The Mosaic Co. has reached a settlement agreement with environmental groups including The Sierra Club that will allow the Minnesota agricultural phosphate producer to continue mining at an extension of the South Fort Meade mine in central Florida, the company said Tuesday.
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February 21, 2012
Grid Petroleum To Develop 4,500-Acre Field In Texas
Denver-based Grid Petroleum Corp. has inked a joint venture development agreement with an unnamed private holding company to develop a 4,500-acre oil and natural gas field in southern Texas, Grid Petroleum announced Tuesday.
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February 21, 2012
US, Mexico Open 1.5M Acres In Gulf For Drilling
The U.S. and Mexican governments struck an agreement Monday to open some 1.5 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico along the countries' maritime boundary for joint oil and gas development.
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February 21, 2012
Reliance Links Up With Petrochem Co. For $450M Rubber Plant
Indian private-sector energy giant Reliance Industries Ltd. has teamed up with Russia's largest petrochemical company to form a joint venture that will build a $450 million synthetic rubber plant, India's first such facility, the companies announced Tuesday.
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February 21, 2012
SemGroup Joint Venture Proposes New Okla. Oil Pipeline
SemGroup Corp., Gavilon Midstream Energy LLC and Chesapeake Energy Corp. on Tuesday announced plans to build a 210-mile oil pipeline to connect the crude market hub in Cushing, Okla., with new drilling along the Oklahoma-Kansas border.
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February 21, 2012
Romanian Wind Co.'s Grid Suit Prompts Board Uproar
A subsidiary of Romanian energy giant Eolica Dobrogea AG has sued that country's grid operator and power regulator over an unfinished grid connection for a 600-megawatt wind farm, earning a strong rebuttal from its own board of directors on Tuesday and sparking a search to replace its executive.
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February 21, 2012
Q&A With Nelson Mullins' Philip Thompson
An inescapable dynamic to project financing transactions, specifically in international cross-border transactions, are the geopolitical risks associated with the identity of the venture parties and counterparties, the political climate and the governmental legal regions, says Philip Thompson, a partner with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP specializing in M&A and project finance, among other areas.
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February 21, 2012
Cabot, Williams Pair Up For 120-Mile Shale Gas Pipeline
Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. and energy infrastructure company Williams Partners LP announced Tuesday that they've teamed up to build a 120-mile pipeline running from Pennsylvania to New York that will deliver shale gas and open up new Northeastern markets.
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February 17, 2012
Texas Top Court Will Tackle Wind Farm Contract Dispute
Texas' highest court on Friday agreed to hear an appeal in a case centering on the enforceability of a liquid damages provision in a contract dispute between an Energy Future Holdings Corp. unit and three wind farms led by a predecessor of NextEra Energy Inc.
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February 17, 2012
4th Circ. Greenlights $11B Va. Highway Project
The Fourth Circuit on Friday dismissed environmental groups' challenge to an $11.4 billion proposal to widen a major Virginia highway, rejecting claims that state and federal transportation agencies failed to properly consider green alternatives for a 325-mile stretch of Interstate 81.
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February 17, 2012
House Greenlights Energy Bill To Expand Oil Drilling
The U.S. House of Representatives passed an energy bill Thursday evening that includes several Republican-backed energy proposals, including opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, removing restrictions on offshore oil drilling and jump-starting TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.
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February 17, 2012
Shell Scores BSEE Approval For Oil Spill Plan In Arctic
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement on Friday approved Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc.'s oil spill response plan for offshore drilling in the Arctic, saying the company met strict requirements instituted in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill.
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February 17, 2012
Brazil's Banco Itau Gets $100M From IDB For Green Energy
Banco Itau BBA SA, the investment arm of Brazil's merged banking giant Itau Unibanco SA, will get a loan of up to $100 million from the Inter-American Development Bank to finance clean energy projects throughout South America, it said Friday.
Expert Analysis
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A Jolt Of Power For FERC In EPA Reliability Issues
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is seeking comments on proposed procedures for advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with respect to electric generator reliability issues — even though FERC itself has no statutory authority over generation adequacy and no experience modeling potential impacts from plant shutdowns, says Brian Gish of David Wright Tremaine LLP.
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The Irredeemable Relevance Of SEC Enforcement Action
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a cease-and-desist order against Fifth Third Bancorp that, despite unusual circumstances, is relevant to any company that plans to redeem any of its publicly held securities, such as utility or other energy companies that commonly have redeemable debt securities or preferred stock outstanding, say attorneys with Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.
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Law School, Meet Litigation PR ...
The single most important thing law schools can do to manage their reputations in the face of litigation is apply the lessons learned from Wall Street during the recent financial crisis and strive for transparency in all communications. One need only look to Goldman Sachs’ woes or the struggles of Jon Corzine’s MF Global as examples of the catastrophic results of a campaign based on anything but complete honesty, says Spencer Baretz of Hellerman Baretz Communications.
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Shale Of The Century
Shale gas has revolutionized the U.S. energy market and now looks set to do the same for China. But potentially entrenched opposition from an alliance of environmentalists, Big Coal, Big Nuclear and sidelined gas-producing nations means the road to fracking nirvana is likely to be bumpy, says Jeremy Sheldon of Stephenson Harwood.
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High-Growth Markets: An Attractive M&A Option
Although high-growth market merger and acquisition activity in 2011 failed to sustain the spectacular growth it experienced in 2010, the looming threat of a double-dip recession in developed economies could push managers to swiftly seize high-quality M&A opportunities in high-growth markets in the near term, say attorneys with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
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Bulking Up NERC's Reliability Authority
In response to a directive from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation has submitted for approval a revised definition of a bulk electric system. Expanding the scope of facilities that fall under the definition will automatically expand the scope of NERC’s reliability standards, say Nicholas Giannasca, Carlos Gutierrez and Elizabeth Stern of Blank Rome LLP.
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Recent Trends In Green Energy M&A
The financial turmoil that began in the summer of 2011, particularly in Europe, has raised concerns regarding the availability of financing in 2012. Recent discussions at the Infocast green energy mergers and acquisitions conference provide insight on potential financing sources, as well as emerging deal structure trends, says Jonathan Melmed of Chadbourne & Parke LLP.
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Inside The 2nd Circ. Stance In Naranjo And Figueiredo
In Chevron Corp. v. Naranjo and in Figueiredo v. Republic of Peru, the Second Circuit has issued two important rulings regarding the adequacy and enforceability of foreign forums and judgments. In particular, the Figueiredo decision threatens to inject significant uncertainty in arbitral confirmation proceedings, particularly in cases involving sovereign defendants, say James Berger and Charlene Sun of Paul Hastings LLP.
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Revised Removal Statutes — Possibilities, Pitfalls: Part 2
The Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Clarification Act of 2011 has brought about substantial clarification in the federal removal, jurisdiction and venue statutes. But the act still leaves substantial ambiguity in place when it comes to the scope of these statutes, say Colin Wrabley and Douglas Allen of Reed Smith LLP.
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Ramping Up Calif. Renewable Energy
Despite the sluggish economy, the California Legislature provides hope for 2012 by supporting development of renewable energy projects and innovative environmentally green projects in California. The keystone of the Legislature’s commitment to “green development” is California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard, say attorneys with Bingham McCutchen LLP.