Bryan Cave’s extensive oil and gas experience includes oil and gas transactions; exploration, development and operations matters; royalty matters; financing and derivatives agreements; environmental and permitting issues; public lands law (including federal, state and Indian); and oil and gas tax matters.  Our clients range in size from major oil and gas companies to small independents. 

Bryan Cave has an in-depth understanding of the technical issues unique to oil and gas development and operations (both onshore and offshore); the fundamentals of the world markets and trading of oil and gas, sales and transportation agreements; oil refineries, gas plants and other processing facilities; gas storage; and natural gas gathering systems and pipelines.  Bryan Cave’s oil and gas attorneys have written extensively on issues pertaining to the oil and gas industry, and include past presidents of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation.  Our lawyers are licensed in most of the major producing states, and have an in-depth understanding of the interrelation of federal, Indian (tribal and allotted) and state land and mineral issues.

We have a long history of bringing together lawyers in multiple practice groups to provide an integrated approach to the counseling of oil and gas clients.  As such, we are prepared to offer expert counsel in oil and gas transactions and in other matters involving oil and gas companies, including:

• Producing and non-producing property acquisitions.
• Facility siting and construction arrangements including pipelines, gathering systems, refineries and gas and other product processing facilities.
• Oil and gas leases, assignments, operating agreements, farm-out agreements, farm-in agreements, participation agreements, development agreements, net profits agreements and off take agreements.
• Gathering and other transportation, treating and processing.
• Surface use and easements and rights-of-way across federal, state, Indian and fee lands.
• Drilling, division order, acquisition, mortgage and other title opinions and reports.
• Spacing, communitization, unitization and pooling arrangements.
• Geological and geophysical data acquisition, protection and transfer.
• Bank and institutional financing, including project finance, representing both lenders and borrowers.
• Oil and gas product purchase and sale contracts.
• Oil and gas derivatives arrangements, including the negotiation of ISDA master agreements, related margin and collateral agreements and integration of derivatives documents with other financing agreements and covenants.
• Stock acquisitions and mergers.
• Securities offerings.
• Intellectual property protection and transfer.
• Tax matters, including energy tax credit transactions and state property tax matters.
• Environmental (including NEPA and air) and permitting matters.
• Federal and other public land issues.
• Indian land (tribal and allotted) issues.
• Land use issues with local governments.
• Federal and private royalty litigation and appeals.
• Natural gas transmission line siting, construction and environmental compliance.

In addition to assisting clients with large acquisition, financing and construction transactions, we also assist our oil and gas clients with day-to-day operational matters, including leasing, assignments, operating agreements, farm-out agreements, development agreements and participation agreements.  Our lawyers have drafted many of the standard forms for oil and gas companies used and widely accepted in the industry today.