Services

Project Management

Through companies founded or co-founded by Mr. Hopper, we have been directly involved in the development, operation and equity and debt financing of over $1 billion worth of multi-cycle underground gas storage projects and associated midstream facilities, including gas pipelines, gas gathering facilities, cryogenic gas processing plants and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects and related midstream facilities. We know what to do – and what not to do – and how to do it right when it comes to energy project management.

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Due Diligence

As everyone knows who has acquired or sold energy assets or has built energy projects from the ground up, a thorough due diligence process is critical. Through our many contacts in the energy industry, we can assemble an experienced team of subject matter experts across multiple energy disciplines to carefully and expeditiously evaluate specific challenges and opportunities in the engineering, design, development, acquisition and operation of energy assets on behalf of our clients.

Risk Management

We have 25+ years of experience in trading and marketing natural gas and other energy commodities. We understand commodity risk exposure and know how to help our clients manage that risk through the application of various hedging strategies, including futures, options, price and basis swaps and other commodity risk management tools.

Contracts

Mr. Hopper is an attorney at law licensed to practice in the state of Texas as well as before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. With over 35 years of private practice and in-house legal experience combined with over 39 years of business experience in the energy industry, we know and understand complex legal and contractual issues and can help our clients to manage these issues effectively.

Regulatory Issues

We were around when the “unbundling” of natural gas pipeline services first began to take place in the United States in the mid-1980s. In fact, Mr. Hopper led a multi-plaintiff energy group that successfully challenged (in the D.C. Court of Appeals) a seminal ruling by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Tejas Power Corporation vs. FERC that resulted in the FERC subsequently issuing Order No. 636, which required the full unbundling of interstate gas pipeline services. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then – but regulatory issues still very much permeate the energy landscape at the local, state and federal levels, perhaps even more so today than in the past. We can help our clients evaluate and mitigate regulatory risk through a clear assessment and understanding of regulatory issues at all levels.

Expert Testimony

In today’s challenging energy industry environment, the unfortunate reality is that legal disputes are a fact of life (as is the case even in the best of times in the energy business). We can assist our clients in evaluating and understanding complex commercial and legal issues that may lead to litigation and provide expert witness testimony when these issues cannot be resolved through means other than through litigation or arbitration.