Contacts
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Elaine M. Walsh
Partner
The Baker Botts Mining and Metals Practice has provided legal services for natural resource and infrastructure development projects in many parts of the world, including Asia and Australia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas. This work includes a full array of legal services relating to the financing and development of projects involving the exploration, extraction, processing, transportation and sale of hard minerals and hydrocarbons.
Our lawyers have substantial experience in the drafting and negotiation of the entire range of mining project-related arrangements and agreements for clients involved in the mining industry, and, in addition to advising in respect of business structuring to achieve optimal tax efficiencies, we are expert at ensuring that our clients’ offshore business structures also maintain maximum investment protections through available investment treaty networks. In furthering our clients interests in the field of mining and resource extraction, our lawyers typically employ a web of appropriate, legal agreements including joint venture agreements, concessions and other contracts with governments, production or risk–sharing contracts, joint operating agreements, earn-in and royalty agreements, drilling and other service contracts, EPC contracts, O&M agreements, surface access arrangements, transportation agreements, water rights agreements and supply and sales contracts and processing agreements, relating to natural resource projects. Of course, all such contractual arrangements go hand in glove with regulatory compliance and permitting advice, as well as, in the case of transactions involving sovereign or parastatal entities, a baseline stabilization or “host government” agreement to ensure consistency of the applicable legal regime for the life of the project. Throughout our firm’s work in respect of all of the foregoing, the legal architecture is designed to ensure that the key contracts are bankable, in order to support either project financing or such other financing model as is appropriate.