Project Finance

Baker Botts has a long history representing various participants in the development and financing of capital-intensive projects throughout the world. With our industry experience, global reach and local understanding, we can provide comprehensive legal support in structuring energy and infrastructure financings of any nature. Our experience extends to all segments of the energy and infrastructure sectors, including:

• Oil and gas exploration and development projects
• Floating production storage and off-loading (FPSOs) and transportation systems
• Drilling rigs and vessels
• Oil and gas pipelines and processing facilities
• Hydrogen energy projects
• LNG export and import terminals
• Refineries
• Petrochemical facilities
• Wind, solar, biomass, landfill gas and other alternative energy projects
• Conventional power generation and transmission
• Toll roads, airports and seaports
• Water treatment facilities
• Telecommunications projects

The breadth and depth of our experience allow us to craft innovative solutions designed to achieve each client’s commercial objectives and risk-allocation preferences.

Finance Team
We have a strong team of recognized project finance lawyers across our global network of offices that provide services under U.S. and English law. In addition, Baker Botts lawyers have taken part in a variety of Islamic financing transactions in recent years involving several Shari’a compliant structures, including ijara (lease), murabaha (sale with mark-up) and mudaraba (partnership with advisor).

Our financing resume includes syndicated loan facilities for both greenfield projects and acquisitions, reserve-based facilities, cross-border and synthetic leasing, maritime financings, public and private debt capital market financings, securitizations, and swaps, hedges and other commodity products, whether full or limited recourse or on- or off-balance sheet. Baker Botts is also one of the pioneers and market leaders in transactions involving master limited partnerships (MLPs) and YieldCos. Many of these financings have entailed cutting-edge structures.

Over the years, Baker Botts lawyers have represented all types of participants in project finance transactions, from borrowers and sponsors to commercial banks, institutional lenders, insurance companies, underwriters, credit enhancers and hedge providers. Our lawyers have significant experience working for or with multilateral development organizations, export credit agencies, regional development banks and other government-owned financing parties. As a result, our lawyers are fully familiar with all of the inter-creditor issues that may arise in multi-tranche financings.

Project Development Experience
Our lawyers have extensive experience in structuring, drafting and negotiating various types of project agreements, such as:

• Concessions, licenses, treaties and other governmental agreements
• Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts
• Fuel supply agreements
• Lifting agreements
• LNG sales and purchase agreements
• Operation and maintenance agreements
• Power purchase, tolling and power marketing agreements
• Terminal use agreements
• Transportation agreements

Our deep market knowledge enables us to provide creative solutions and give our clients contractual protection in the context of a specific project. Our lawyers are trained to anticipate issues, identify risks and solve problems in both project development and project finance contexts, so that the project agreements properly allocate risks and support a favorable financing.