What oil and gas lawyers bring to the Energy Transition

Abstract

Abstract This article argues that today’s oil and gas lawyers are very well prepared to become tomorrow’s energy lawyers. How the Energy Transition ultimately plays out in the coming decades is unknown. What is known is that the world will need immense new low and zero-carbon energy infrastructure: hydrogen, geothermal, carbon capture and sequestration, wind and solar. This article proposes seven areas where education and experience in oil and gas law prepares lawyers for advising companies, regulators, bankers and other stakeholders now investing in and regulating that future Energy Transition infrastructure. In each of these seven areas, this article shows how oil and gas legal and regulatory issues will have analogous challenges in low and zero-carbon infrastructure. Many of the same challenges that have faced oil and gas projects—capital flows, geopolitical risks, title concerns, creeping expropriation, land use and local opposition, evolving standards and maritime regulation—have analogues in Energy Transition infrastructure. Oil and gas lawyers, accordingly, come to the Energy Transition with a well-stocked toolkit. This article concludes by recognizing it is only a partial list of how working in oil and gas law prepares one for the Energy Transition.