Energy - Project Development

Overview

Developing infrastructure and construction projects requires the ability to negotiate, structure financing, and understand a web of regulations across jurisdictions. There are also numerous inherent risks and a multitude of challenges for developers, lenders, and other participants to overcome.

Blank Rome’s energy attorneys represent clients at all stages of project development from conception to final engineering. We help develop, finance, construct, operate, acquire, sell, restructure, and manage large energy infrastructure and other industrial projects. We provide a strategic approach that’s unique to specific business needs and jurisdictional requirements.

Our attorneys have counseled and advised companies developing projects that have ranged in size from tens of millions to several billion dollars. Our clients have developed or are developing projects across the United States, including in Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New York. These projects have included:

  • Gas-fired and oil-fired electric generating plants
  • Interstate and intrastate natural gas, petroleum, and liquids pipelines
  • Solar, onshore and offshore wind, hydrogen, and biomass power generation facilities
  • Large-scale seawater desalination, groundwater pipeline, and water treatment projects
  • Liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) export, import, and storage facilities and transportation by barge and ocean-going vessels
  • Petrochemical plants

We also regularly work with our M&A, finance, and litigation attorneys to assist our clients in the purchase and sale of project interests or resolving disputes that might arise during project construction and operation.

Chambers USA has reported that clients view us as “a highly knowledgeable regulatory team that has the capability to take on any regulatory matter, while at the same time being lean, flexible and not overstaffing” and “‘timely, responsive, sensible and pragmatic’” and note that we are “‘well regarded by regulatory staff and strong on enforcement matters.’”

How We Can Help

  • Transaction structuring focusing on U.S. and state tax, environmental, and regulatory effects 
  • Due-diligence investigations 
  • Real estate matters, including title and local land use, eminent domain, tax, and foreign investment (e.g., Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (“FIRPTA”) matters
  • Federal, state, and local permits for operations, including those required under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, and Rivers and Harbors Act
  • Permits and authorizations for federal, state, and regional transmission organizations (“RTO”), including those under the Natural Gas Act, Federal Power Act, Energy Policy Act of 2005, and pipeline safety legislation
  • Judicial and administrative challenges to permits and authorizations, including appeals from denials
  • Negotiation and execution of credit agreements and other loan and security documents
  • Negotiation and execution of ancillary agreements, including power purchase and sale, tolling, EPC, equipment purchase, net metering, and interconnection agreements
  • Debt and equity funding and closing, including applications for investment grade security ratings
  • Management of transactions involving international investors, including Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) applications and proceedings
  • Post-financial closing filings

News & Views

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