Power

Baker & McKenzie has extensive experience in power transactions including joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, privatizations, finance and project finance, power-linked swaps and hedges, tax, competition, regulatory, confidentiality, commercial/corporate, environmental, land use, fuel supply, operation and maintenance and insurance. We have broad knowledge on all technologies, from coal, oil, and gas-fired thermal plants to nuclear, hydroelectric, and renewables projects.

Project Development
Our track record in power project development work – advising extensively on the development, operation, and financing of a range of projects – includes many "milestone projects" throughout the world. We act primarily for project developers, but also for lenders, governments, international agencies, contractors, and operators.

Financing techniques used on these transactions include limited recourse financing, capital markets issues, and lease structures, with facilities from commercial lenders, export credit agencies, and multi-lateral institutions.

Trading and Marketing
Successful power marketing and trading is built around a combination of regulatory and structuring skills, experience in relevant markets, and financing options in securitization and financial derivatives. We have a decade of power marketing and trading experience, which enables us to share the best practices learned in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Scandinavia, and US markets for power marketing and trading.

Our experience in addressing the complex regulatory, contracting, and risk management issues raised by power marketing and trading includes assignments in support and development of power marketing businesses by electric and gas utilities as well as the more sophisticated requirements of project restructuring, asset disposition, gas tolling, arbitrage, and asset optimization, and restructuring agreements.

Some examples of recent projects in which we have been involved include:

• In 2006, Baker & McKenzie won four Power-related ‘Deal of the Year’ awards from the Asia Pacific region’s leading industry and legal publications. These include:
  
  
  • Gulf Cogeneration project bond transaction: Refinancing of three small power providers in Thailand – named Asia Pacific Power Deal of the Year 2006 by Project Finance Magazine.
  • Ratchaburi Power transaction: Project development and financing of a 1,400 MW gas fired power plant in Thailand – named Asian Power Deal of the Year 2006 by Project Finance International.
  • Fujairah Independent Water and Project Producer transaction: Project financing of a 535 MW gas-fired power plant and desalination plant producing 100 million gallons of water per day in the UAE – named one of the Deals of the Year 2006 by Asian Counsel.
  • CLP-Singapore Power sale of power assets transaction: Sale of Australian merchant energy business of SPI Australia Group to CLP Power Australia Energy Holdings Limited – named Energy and Resources Deal of the Year 2006 at the Australasian Law Awards.
    
    
• Acting for a global utility company in relation to the establishment of J-POWER USA and the development of wholesale power generation opportunities in the United States.
• Acting in relation to the refinancing of a large power project in Colombia.
• Acting in relation to the project financing of the US$1.7 billion Fujairah Independent Water and Power Producer project in the UAE. The transaction has been one of UAE's biggest IWPP project for 2005/2006.
• Acting for the sponsors of a captive 1,500 MW power plant in Saudi Arabia.