LAW, SCIENCE & FINANCES OF GLOBAL ENERGY TRANSACTIONS
This three credit, multidisciplinary, course will focus on identifying, understanding and developing strategies for the numerous legal, geoscience and commercial/economic issues that arise in the context of selecting, funding, developing, operating and decommissioning an international oil and gas project. Students will have the opportunity to examine and solve "real world" problems that arise in the context of international energy investments. Students will work on interdisciplinary teams with students from other graduate programs.
The course is open to students from the Law School, McCombs School of Business, and the Energy and Earth Resources Program in the Jackson School. It will cover the following legal topics: applicable legal regimes; common forms of host government agreements and fiscal/ non-fiscal terms; issues associated with the enforcement of rights and international dispute resolution provisions; private party investment agreements; joint operating/governance agreements and geoscience technology licenses and agreements. The geoscience concepts that will be explored include petroleum geology and prospect definition; current trends and uses of seismic technology; production techniques (including petroleum engineering, well drilling and use of FPSO's); gas and LNG technology; and decommissioning techniques and related environmental issues. The commercial/economic concepts that will be covered include global oil and gas macroeconomic supply and demand; time value of money; valuation and risk analysis; oil and gas distribution systems economics (including gas pipeline and LNG alternatives); and decommissioning trust funds, LOC's and related instruments.
Students will have an opportunity to deepen their understanding of these concepts and their interrelationships throughout the semester through participation in a three-person multidisciplinary transaction team (each team comprising one student each from the Law School, the McCombs School of Business and the Jackson School of Geosciences) and through completion of a series of "real world" assignments (as a team and individually) based on a hypothetical international energy project transaction. The course will culminate with a presentation by each transactional team to a "board of directors" of an international oil and gas project investment proposal comprising technical, commercial/economic and legal elements.
Anderson, Owen L. 
Groat, Charles G.