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Congratulations to all our winners
  
  
Thursday 9 February 2012 - Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London

Energy and Natural Resources Team of the Year

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The winning team must demonstrate real strength and commitment in the energy and natural resources sector. Although we will be accepting submissions covering corporate and finance matters, as well as contentious work, it is not the size of the deal that counts but the industry knowledge behind it. The winner will have advised on a trailblazing matter that has significantly affected the market.

Previous Winners:

Advising on the UK’s revolutionary Round 3 wind farm project

Norton Rose’s role advising long-standing client The Crown Estate on the Round 3 offshore windfarms was the outstanding energy instruction of 2010. Announced by Gordon Brown in January 2010, Round 3 is worth £75bn and is billed as the world’s biggest renewable energy deal, generating 25GW of power by 2020. Norton Rose dedicated a sizeable team to advise The Crown Estate on all aspects of the deal, which saw the packaging and sale of nine different wind farm zones off the UK coast.

The firm put together a team from its energy, real estate and competition practices to advise on all the drafting, leasing agreements and tendering processes. Most impressively the firm, alongside its client, developed a unique software tool to analyse and compare the key commercial and legal components of each submission during the tendering process. The project promises to revolutionise the UK’s renewable energy sector.

HIGHLY COMMENDED

CMS Cameron McKEnna
Charles Currier

CMS Cameron McKenna advised RWE Innogy on the sale of its share in the Gwynt y Môr wind farm project to Stadtwerke München and Siemens. The firm devised an unincorporated joint venture between the three parties, which allowed each investor to consolidate 100% of its share of generated power, deal with their own power and put their own financing into the project.

Eversheds
Michelle Thomas; Paul Wootton

Eversheds advised the Forewind Consortium, the biggest bidder in the UK’s Round 3 offshore wind
farm projects. The investment will see the development of a farm in the Dogger Bank zone, located off the East coast of Yorkshire. The firm’s 15-lawyer team acted for the consortium, which is comprised of four major energy companies, on all corporate, development and finance matters.

LinKLATERS
Manzer Ijaz

Linklaters’ impressive team co-ordinated seven export credit agencies, 31 commercial banks, the Saudi Public Investment Fund and the Islamic finance providers on the financing for the $14bn Jubail Refinery and Petrochemical project in Saudi Arabia. The deal included approximately $8.5bn of senior debt.

SHEARMAN & STERLING
Tim Pick

The firm advised both project sponsor Citadel Capital and the company, Egyptian Refining Company, on the development and financing of the $3.5bn hydrocracking refinery near Cairo. The Mostorod-based plant will be the first in Egypt to produce IATA-grade jet fuel and European Union-grade diesel, while the deal is touted as the largest ever project financing in Africa.

Simmons & Simmons
Patrick Wallace

Simmons & Simmons took an impressive lead role on the Nabucco Gas Pipeline project, which will span 3,300km linking Western Europe with Asia and will require an anticipated €8bn in investment. The deal involved the unusual drafting of a five-country
inter-governmental agreement with powers similar to a treaty. Nabucco will supply 31bn cubic meters of gas per year to Europe for the next five decades.

White & Case
Jason Kerr; Philip Stopford

White & Case advised Nord Stream on the construction and financing of a €7bn gas pipeline, which will stretch from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. The deal includes financing from 26 banks, two export credit agencies and Germany’s UFK. The first 1,220km line is now under construction..