Energy & Infrastructure

Kirkland’s corporate attorneys advise clients on all aspects of infrastructure transactions, ranging from the development, acquisition and financing to the sale and restructuring of infrastructure projects and assets around the world. Our infrastructure experience covers a wide range of areas including:

• Renewables and Clean Energy
• Digital and Telecommunication Infrastructure
• Conventional Power and Utilities
• LNG
• Transportation and Logistics
• Midstream
• Upstream
• Oil and Gas
• Downstream
• Social and Leisure
• Water and Waste

Robust Infrastructure M&A Experience
Infrastructure team handles a broad spectrum of matters pertaining to domestic and complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions, including private equity and institutional investments, disposals and joint ventures

Diverse Client Base
Counsel to a diverse client base within the global infrastructure space, including leading private equity funds, institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, sponsors, developers and public and private companies on large-scale multifaceted projects and transactional engagements

Multidisciplinary Approach
Unique ability to bring together skilled attorneys in various complementary practices across a global M&A platform, including renowned finance, capital markets, real estate, tax, environmental, regulatory and restructuring attorneys needed for seamless execution of sophisticated infrastructure transactions

Global Capabilities
Extensive infrastructure transaction experience throughout the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, adept at navigating the particular legal challenges that each country and region brings

Our midstream team, along with our broader energy and infrastructure transactional, environmental and energy disputes lawyers, regularly advises clients on the acquisition and sale of midstream energy and infrastructure assets as well as the financings of private and public companies, negotiated as well as unsolicited acquisitions, going private transactions, spin-off transactions and acquisitions of minority interests and spin-off transactions. We advise clients as they evaluate existing business structures and explore the advantages of mergers, acquisitions, and other transactions and structures, including the divestiture or reorganization of assets.

Kirkland is outside counsel for energy and energy-related companies, including midstream gathering and pipeline companies, private equity firms, financial institutions, investors, master limited partnerships, national oil companies and major independents. We combine best-in-class M&A experience with a tier one financing platform. Our energy and infrastructure lawyers also represent private equity firms seeking to invest in the energy industry.

Specifically, we assist our clients in the following areas:

• Crude and gas gathering agreements
• Gas processing, fractionation and products supply agreements
• Produced water gathering, disposal and recycling agreements
• Crude, products and sand terminaling agreements
• Midstream operating agreements
• Acquisitions of energy generation and transmission assets
• Energy outsourcing agreements
• Financings, asset securitizations, and structured finance for lenders and borrowers
• Infrastructure development
• Joint ventures, partnerships, and strategic alliances
• Mergers and acquisitions; asset acquisitions and divestitures

Our team of power transactional attorneys regularly advises clients on the acquisition and sale of energy and infrastructure assets as well as the financings of private and public companies, negotiated as well as unsolicited acquisitions, going private transactions, spin-off transactions and acquisitions of minority interests. We advise clients as they evaluate existing business structures and explore the advantages of mergers, acquisitions, and other transactions and structures, including the divestiture or reorganization of assets.

Kirkland is outside counsel for energy and energy-related companies, including independent power producers (IPP), electric and natural gas utilities, electric and natural gas power marketers, natural gas pipeline owners natural gas and coal companies. We combine best-in-class M&A experience with a tier one financing platform. Our energy lawyers also represent private equity firms seeking to invest in the energy industry. As recognized by Chambers USA, Kirkland is the “go to firm for IPPs,” advising on “all corporate, commercial and regulatory matters” in the energy industry.

Specifically, we assist our clients in the following areas:

• Acquisitions of energy generation and transmission assets
• Energy outsourcing agreements
• Financings, asset securitizations, and structured finance for lenders and borrowers
• Fuel source acquisitions (coal, gas, feedstocks)
• Hedging agreements
• Infrastructure development
• Joint ventures, partnerships, and strategic alliances
• Mergers and acquisitions; asset acquisitions and divestitures
• Power purchase agreements (wholesale and retail)
• Renewable energy credits agreements
• Tolling agreements and facility operations and maintenance agreements
• Tax equity, back-leverage and construction financings, asset securitizations and structured finance for lenders and borrowers

The unprecedented shift in the U.S. and around the world towards the development and deployment of clean energy technology has given rise to substantial opportunities and risks in the energy industry. Kirkland advises clients on transactional, development, financing, commercial and other matters in renewable energy and clean technologies, including solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, landfill gas, biomass and biofuel. The Firm prides itself on creating unique and innovative deal structures while advising clients on the ever-changing regulatory landscape associated with climate change.

Kirkland is outside counsel for energy and energy-related companies, including solar and wind energy companies, private equity firms, financial institutions and investors. We combine best-in-class M&A experience with a tier one financing platform. Our energy and infrastructure lawyers also represent private equity firms investing in the energy industry.

For decades, Kirkland & Ellis lawyers have represented oil and gas clients in some of their largest and most significant matters. Our energy lawyers have extensive experience advising major energy companies and private equity funds in all aspects of the oil and gas industry, in particular in transactions involving assets located in all of the significant domestic shale plays as well as the Gulf of Mexico. Our energy lawyers combine world-class experience in sophisticated M&A and joint venture transactions with a deep understanding of the technical issues unique to oil and gas transactional work.

Kirkland & Ellis has represented clients in the formation of a number of complex joint ventures in the oil and gas space, including transactions involving the formation of one or more companies to manage the joint venture’s assets and transactions where the participants each own undivided working interests in the assets. These joint ventures have focused on multiple opportunities in the upstream and midstream sectors, including the exploration and development of oil and gas properties, the acquisition, management and leasing of mineral interests and the development of midstream infrastructure. Working in close collaboration with our client’s business and legal teams, we develop a deep understanding of the business, financing and operational issues in the oil and gas industry, particularly with respect to the development of shale plays. This experience allows us to provide our clients insight on issues and concerns that are often important drivers of their counterparties’ legal positions.

In addition to Kirkland’s M&A and joint venture experience with energy companies and oil and gas upstream and midstream assets, the Firm’s lawyers have represented clients in the negotiation of:

• Farmout and participation agreements
• Joint development agreements
• Acreage exchange agreements
• Land bank and agency agreements
• Joint operating agreements and unit operating agreements
• Creation of overriding royalties, production payments and net profits interests
• Gas gathering agreements and crude oil gathering agreements
• Gas processing, fractionation and product supply agreements
• Pipeline interconnect agreements
• Pipeline operating agreements
• Production handling agreements
• Hydrocarbon purchase and sale agreements
• Master services agreements 

Kirkland’s Infrastructure Finance attorneys advise globally on the development and financing of some of the most complex infrastructure projects across a broad range of industries, including:

• Power and Renewables
• Energy, including Upstream, Midstream and Downstream
• Intermodal and Other Transport Services
• Gathering and Processing Systems and Related Assets
• Maritime Terminals and Shipping
• Roads, Rail and Parking
• Airports and Related Infrastructure
• Telecommunications & Data Centers
• Water & Waste Management

Kirkland’s Infrastructure Finance team has a commercial and legal understanding of the capital markets terms for the construction and development, acquisition and operation of large and complex projects and the industry incentives of the various project participants across all sectors. We provide efficient and reliable execution of transactions based on experience that spans the spectrum from traditional project finance to back-levered and hybrid transactions that combine aspects of project finance and leveraged finance. Our broad market knowledge allows us to advise our clients on the possibility space of their investments and the proper allocation of construction, operational, marketing, technology, environmental, regulatory and political risks related to projects.