Speaking Energy

2023 saw two megadeals in the oil & gas industry that have led to calls from environmental interest groups for the FTC to intervene despite a lack of obvious antitrust issues. Whether the FTC will sue to block the deals remains to be seen.

It seems likely the year ahead will see only a modest rebound in mergers & acquisitions (M&A) activity. Among the challenges that remain for 2024, one challenge to further deal activity is the potential shortage of attractive assets coming to market. Another hindrance to the depth of the M&A markets is the ongoing—and widening—valuation gap between the big energy giants and the smaller producers that is now reaching historic levels.

The past year has been broadly characterized as one of limited public market activity and rising interest rates putting a dampener on access to capital. For the oil & gas industry, the volume of debt & equity offerings remained at historically low levels. With bank lenders and some institutional investors also continuing to retreat from the market, it has been a year in which alternative sources of capital have come to the fore.

(Houston) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce it has released its “2020 Energy Year in Review,” which examines the current state of the global energy market and highlights the energy matters with which the firm was involved last year across the following areas:

• Mergers, Acquisitions & Strategic Transactions
• Capital Markets
• Financing
• Project Development
• Financial Restructuring
• Energy Litigation.

The winter storm in Texas last month altered perceptions of the Texas electricity market (not to mention the heavy toll it took on the residents of Texas), including the reputation of renewable energy hedges. However, not all hedges are created alike, and whether a renewable energy project was financially jeopardized by the recent Texas storms or whether it saw minimal impact depends on the type of hedge that facility entered into well before the storm hit.

In the dynamic world of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading, one of the hottest new products is the carbon-neutral transaction. Designed to make oil and LNG more competitive environmentally with renewable energy in response to environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) pressures, climate change and the decarbonization megatrend, carbon-neutral oil and carbon-neutral LNG provide for the offset of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with a defined set of oil or LNG activities. A carbon-neutral oil or LNG transaction is effected through terms in the underlying transaction documents that govern the sourcing, purchase and retirement of carbon credits as offset units (COUs).¹

(Houston) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce it has released its “2019 Energy Year in Review,” which examines the current state of the global energy market and highlights the energy matters with which the firm was involved last year across the following areas:

(Houston) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce it has released its “2015 Energy Year in Review,” which examines the current state of the global energy market and highlights the energy matters with which the firm was involved last year in the following areas:

• M&A
• financial restructuring
• capital markets
• lending
• project development and project finance
• energy regulation, markets and enforcement
• energy litigation and international arbitration.