Shearman & Sterling LLP
Shearman & Sterling LLP has been active in North Africa and the Middle East since the 1960s, setting up its Abu Dhabi office in 1975 on the back of strong links to clients in the oil and gas sector.
The office today has a strong focus on project finance and development in the oil and gas, power and infrastructure sectors. Lawyers offer advice to both local and international clients on a variety of issues and over the years have fostered strong links with a number of the region’s national oil companies.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, Shearman & Sterling fields representatives in the oil and gas, and project finance chapters, where Philip Dundas, Mathew Kidwell and Tim Pick feature prominently. Dundas is managing partner of the Abu Dhabi office and perhaps one of the region’s best-known names. His practice encompasses the full spectrum of oil and gas matters for national oil companies as well as large corporate clients. He has recently represented United Arab Emirates Offsets Group, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Qatar General Petroleum Corporation to name but a few. On the oil and gas front Kidwell has worked with major internationals throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe on matters such as exploration and production, refining, transportation, regulation and transmission. He was also widely praised for his project finance expertise in the energy sector. Among other matters he represented a major oil company on an upstream development in the Arabian Gulf. Praised as someone who “works hard to get the deal done” Pick is said to produce “good, responsible and sensible” work for clients such as Qatar Electricity & Water, Dolphin Energy, ADNOC and Woodside Petroleum.