Lawyers often gain valuable experience by accident. This was the case with me and force majeure. A couple of weeks after 9/11, I joined Occidental Petroleum’s business development office in Dubai. As the youngest person on the team, I received... Continue Reading →
An indemnity is one party’s agreement to hold another harmless for certain types of claims or losses. A typical definition of Indemnify would be as follows: “Indemnify” means release, reimburse, protect, indemnify, compensate, make whole, make good, hold harmless, and... Continue Reading →
Contractors are generally entitled to seek additional compensation (a “price adjustment”) for encountering unanticipated site conditions. The more challenging question is defining what, precisely, constitutes an unanticipated site condition. For example, in the clause below, unanticipated remains undefined: If contractor encounters unanticipated site... Continue Reading →
Over the course of their construction, pipelines encounter many obstacles that require the use of subsurface tunnels. Such tunnels enable the pipeline to pass beneath roadways, railroads, rivers, and environmentally sensitive areas without disturbing them. There are three principal methods... Continue Reading →
More than 2.5 million miles of pipeline move American oil and gas production to refineries and consumers. The U.S. Energy Information Administration is tracking an additional $100 billion of new natural gas projects, which would add more than 10,000 miles... Continue Reading →
I recently had the opportunity to tour the Allseas Solitaire pipe layer as it was constructing a natural gas pipeline between the United States and Mexico. The Allseas Solitaire is 1,302 feet long, longer than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.... Continue Reading →
This is a guest blog authored by Ankur Shah, one of my students at Rice University's Graduate School of Business. Royal Dutch Shell says the world could be grappling with a shortage of liquefied natural gas within a decade... Continue Reading →
A common area of confusion in construction agreements is whether a modification to the agreement and its exhibits should be papered via a change order or an amendment. Both change orders and amendments are signed by the owner of the... Continue Reading →
Construction agreements bring to bear both tangible materials and intangible services to achieve an end product—the facility. As such, many of the same terms and conditions used in construction agreements also appear in procurement and services contracts. Procurement agreements are... Continue Reading →
