Blank Rome’s Energy M&A team is prepared to advise clients on matters from the routine to the most complex transactions across the entire field of the energy industry, including the more nuanced dealings of the upstream, midstream, downstream, and infrastructure services sectors. With attorneys on the ground in both Houston and Pittsburgh, our team has a solid foothold in the most active producing basins and energy hubs in the United States, including the Gulf Coast and Permian Basins, as well as the Marcellus Basin in the northeast. Our attorneys are exceptionally well positioned to partner with our clients in creating the high value and sustainable business models they strive for and expect.
The developing energy transition has created tremendous opportunities for innovation, diversification, and growth for our clients participating in the evolving energy economy. Our lawyers are uniquely positioned at the nexus of this evolution, leveraging decades of traditional dealmaking and project experience to counsel our clients through the unique business and legal challenges of developing and implementing tomorrow’s energy innovations. Building on the foundations forged over decades of industry experience, we are doing pioneering work for clients engaged in emerging energy sectors, including the burgeoning carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (“CCUS”) industry. As early movers in CCUS, we have represented project sponsors, landowners, industrial emitters, and private equity at all phases of project implementation, including pore space leasing, carbon offtake and transportation, equity and debt finance and joint ventures, permitting, and 45Q tax credits and other carbon attribute matters.
For decades, our team has maintained a solid knowledge and appreciation for the various challenges and expectations facing businesses in this industry, and they draw from this experience to advise clients and provide solutions that will avoid any risks or potential pitfalls that may arise. Our clients rely on Blank Rome for our attorneys’ ability to provide strategic and forward-looking insight into this industry while also understanding their unique business concerns. We advise a full spectrum of energy-industry clients, including:
- Oil, gas, petroleum liquids, and mineral producers
- Governments and national energy companies
- Electric, gas, and water independents and public utilities
- Carbon capture and storage project sponsors
- Liquid natural gas (“LNG”) importers, exporters, and storage operators
- Oilfield service companies
- Midstream operators
- Pipeline, processing, and distribution companies
- Renewable energy companies, including offshore wind developers
- Electric transmission companies
- Developers and owners of solar, wind, and hydro power facilities
- Service providers including engineering, procurement, and construction (“EPC”) and environmental firms
- Financial institutions, including major private equity and infrastructure funds
Within the energy sector, businesses rely on our firm to help them remain competitive and maximize their opportunities. Clients turn to us because we understand and have experience with the many business needs and overarching intricacies of the industry. We have helped our clients navigate transactions and deals of all sizes, along with a variety of other matters that may emerge along the way to success. Our multidisciplinary team has comprehensive knowledge of the many issues and concerns facing the energy sector, and we are prepared to recognize and resolve any hurdles regarding deal planning and structure, financing, due diligence documentation and review, as well as risk mitigation, among other matters. Together, our team has built a nationwide reputation in the key oil-and gas-producing regions and, in turn, have developed a keen understanding of the needs and goals of our varied clients across the upstream, midstream, and downstream energy marketplaces, and their service providers. Blank Rome is available to handle the entire lifespan of any transaction and help bring about a successful outcome.
How We Can Help
Blank Rome’s team is seamlessly integrated with other firm attorneys who have significant proficiency and experience in multiple areas, allowing us to address all matters and provide comprehensive service for your transactions. We also provide our services to clients that provide consulting and project management services to the Energy industry. Our range of legal disciplines includes securities, intellectual property, tax, real estate, international trade, ERISA, employment, and environmental law, among others.
Our Mergers & Acquisitions (“M&A”) practice consists of more than 90 experienced dealmakers who understand that successful transactions require meticulous attention to detail, knowledge of your business needs and the environment in which you operate, along with a sound strategy to bring all the pieces together to get the deal done.
Specific M&A services our team handles for clients include:
- Developing strategy and planning of transactions
- Transaction and tax structuring
- Negotiating and drafting letters of intent, master service agreements, credit and bank group agreements, collateralized production loan financings, leases, royalty owner agreements, drilling contracts, farmouts (as well as farm-ins), oil and gas sales contracts, buy-sell agreements for crude oil, ISDA agreements, and pipeline use agreements, among other documents
- Advising boards on fiduciary duties
- Assisting with the exploration, development and operation of oil and gas properties, including concession, drilling, development, and production-sharing
- Issue and opportunity spotting with respect to energy innovation projects
- Assisting with various energy ventures, including joint ventures, partnerships, limited liability companies, and other joint-ownership or joint-participation arrangements
- Advising clients with the development, construction, and operation of pipelines, including gas processing plants, refineries, and petrochemical facilities
- Advising emerging businesses on equity financing matters
- Assisting clients with sales, marketing, storage, processing, and transportation agreements relating to oil and gas and processed or refined hydrocarbon products
- Preparing stock and asset purchase agreements
- Preparing regulatory filings, including banking and Hart-Scott-Rodino filings
Our M&A work also includes:
Cross-Border Transactions
Blank Rome is well known for handling international business transactions, including M&A, joint ventures, licensing agreements, distributorship and sales agency arrangements, and cross-border secured-financings. Our team has the comprehensive international business experience that clients need to navigate any international trade policy or negotiation.
Leveraged Buyouts
Our team has been involved in all aspects of leveraged buyouts, from acquisitions by financial buyers to management-led buyouts, and we are adept at handling the acquisition and financing of public and non-public companies of all sizes. We have advised companies, management, and financial sponsors in numerous going-private transactions, employee stock ownership plan (“ESOP”) acquisition transactions, friendly and hostile takeovers, making of acquisition offers, responding to acquisition offers, restructurings and workouts, and spin-offs of company divisions.
Distressed Businesses
Distressed business environments can provide tremendous opportunities for strategic transactions. Our attorneys counsel potential buyers interested in purchasing assets from Chapter 11 and Chapter 7 debtors. We also regularly represent debtors, creditors’ committees, secured and unsecured creditors, investors, and investment banking and restructuring firms around the country.
What Sets Us Apart
- Our Energy team includes a former U.S. Secretary of Energy, and former officials of the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice.
- Several of our energy attorneys are former high-level executives in major integrated oil, chemical, and natural resources companies and one served as a general counsel of a major public utility.
- Our attorneys also provide their insights in monthly articles for The Legal Intelligencer, are routinely asked to be featured speakers at industry events, and serve as educators for Continuing Legal Education seminars and webinars. One of our energy partners is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School.
- We help our clients keep current on the latest trends in the industry through our regularly updated Energy, Chemical & Environmental Trends Watch blog.
- Ranked Tier 1 in U.S. News & World Report–Best Lawyers® 2024 “Best Law Firms” for Energy Law in Washington, D.C., and highly ranked nationally.
- Ranked Tier 1 in 2024 U.S. News & World Report–Best Lawyers® for M&A Law nationally and for Corporate Law nationally and in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Highly ranked for Capital Markets Law nationally and regionally in Los Angeles, New York City, and Philadelphia and for M&A Law regionally in Los Angeles and New York City.
- 2023 Legal 500 United States ranks Blank Rome as a Recommended Firm in M&A – Middle Market.
- Chambers USA 2024 ranks Blank Rome for its Corporate/M&A work in Philadelphia and Surrounds and notes that clients say:
- “Blank Rome is skilled in the middle market space. They are efficient and effective in handling many different types of transactions.”
- “Their service and responsiveness are top notch and immediate.”