Baker Botts has substantial experience serving as counsel to joint ventures and to investors in joint ventures. These joint ventures take differing forms, but many involve oil and gas exploration and development, where producers routinely collaborate on upstream (and sometimes pipeline and LNG) projects to mitigate risks, achieve desired economies of scale, or create market opportunities to support their sizable investments. Our lawyers also have extensive experience in the petrochemicals and petroleum products sector, where industry participants frequently act through joint ventures.

In joint venture transactions, our lawyers work closely with consortium members or venturers and their in-house counsel, or with an individual investor in the project, to identify their business, tax, financing, governance and other objectives; to evaluate these objectives; and to develop appropriate structures and approaches. Thereafter, we often stay involved during the implementation phase, as client or venture needs require. Because of our training and experience and our understanding of the underlying business, we provide practical advice to help clients achieve project success.

In addition to the energy sector, we have deep joint venture experience spanning other industries, including telecommunications (including cable, telephony, satellite services and the Internet), pharmaceuticals and healthcare, entertainment and sports, real estate, information technology, computer technology, software development, advertising, transportation and mining.

Selected Experience

Oil and Gas Sector

• Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), an operating company formed and owned by a consortium that includes BP, ExxonMobil, Unocal, Devon Energy, Statoil, Amerada Hess, and TPAO – representation both with respect to certain upstream matters and in developing two early oil pipelines connecting their production field to crude oil sales markets on the Black Sea; advising several of the producers from this consortium in developing the multi-jurisdictional legal framework and forming BTC Co., the BP-managed company currently implementing the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Main Oil Pipeline
• BTC Co. – project to connect fields in the Caspian Sea, offshore Baku, to markets on the Mediterranean
• Shah Deniz – consortium to develop and operate the Shah Deniz field, also offshore Baku, both in the upstream project and in developing the South Caucasus Gas Pipeline, which will deliver gas from the Shah Deniz field to markets in Georgia and Turkey
• Marathon – development of an LNG project in Equatorial Guinea involving multiple producers from two large fields, including putting in place the necessary arrangements with the government to support and facilitate the project

Petroleum Products and Petrochemicals Sector

• ExxonMobil Chemical Company – worldwide joint venture with Shell Chemical to produce and market fuel and lubricant additives
• Lyondell Chemical Company – joint venture with Millennium Chemicals to form Equistar Chemicals, L.P.
• Equistar Chemicals, L.P. – multibillion-dollar addition of OxyPetrochemicals, Inc., a company involved in producing and marketing ethylene and propylene

LNG

• ConocoPhillips – acquisition of an interest in an LNG receiving terminal to be constructed in Texas

Entertainment

• Liberty Digital – joint venture with Sony Pictures Entertainment to own the Game Show Network