News Releases

UWI and bpTT bring together international industry experts for Inaugural Oil and Gas Law Conference

For Release Upon Receipt - March 13, 2015

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago – The University of the West Indies (UWI), through its Faculty of Law at the St. Augustine Campus, is joining with bpTT to host an inaugural Oil and Gas Law Conference on April 30 and May 1, 2015 at the Hyatt Regency Trinidad in Port-of-Spain. The theme of the conference and workshop is “Key Legal Issues in Oil and Gas Law: A Caribbean Perspective.”.

Deputy Dean (Outreach) of the Faculty of Law and Conference Chair Mrs. Alicia Elias-Roberts notes that The UWI is keen to develop oil and gas law because it addresses an area that is critical to the developmental needs of the Caribbean region, Trinidad and Tobago in particular. This conference, she notes, is in line with the strategic plan and mission of The UWI to advance education and create knowledge in order to support the development of the Caribbean region and beyond. In the last academic year, an Oil and Gas Law course was developed and offered at The UWI for the first time. The Deputy Dean will also join the distinguished panel at the conference, which includes:

·         Professor Peter Cameron: PhD FRSE FCIArb; Director, Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law & Policy; Co-Director, International Energy Arbitration Centre, University of Dundee, UK.

·         Professor Jacqueline Lang Weaver: A.A. White Professor of Law and Interim Director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Centre, University of Houston Law Centre.

·         Daniel J. Fitzwilliam: Attorney-at-law, Fitzwilliam, Stone, Furness-Smith & Morgan, Trinidad and Tobago.

·         Wendy-Fae Thompson: Managing Counsel, bpTT LLC.

·         Ahren Tryon: Attorney-at-law, Tryon Law Firm, Texas, USA.

·         Terry Follen: FCMA, CGMA, Principal, Hydrocarbon.

The conference costs US$800. Early bird registation at a cost of US$720 is available until March 31, 2015. Special group packages are also available. Interested persons can email Zennille.Swann@sta.uwi.edu. 

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Profiles of Conference Presenters

Professor Peter Cameron, PhD FRSE FCIArb; Director, Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law & Policy; Co-Director, International Energy Arbitration Centre, University of Dundee, Scotland. He has concentrated primarily on oil and gas law in his career as an energy specialist. From 1991 onwards he was regularly employed by the World Bank as a consultant responsible for drafting oil and gas laws and model contracts, working in Poland, in Russia for the Yeltsin Government, Brazil, China, Kazakhstan, and later in Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania. Subsequently, he worked closely with the Norwegian Government and through them assisted the Governments of Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Togo in drafting their hydrocarbons and gas legislation and, for a time, was seconded to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific at their headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand. He is a barrister (England and Wales, Middle Temple), and has regularly been asked by governments and investors to testify in arbitral proceedings as an expert witness.

Professor Jacqueline Lang Weaver, a Harvard graduate, A.A. White Professor of Law and Interim Director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resource (EENR) Centre at the University of Houston Law Centre.  Her teaching and research interests cover oil and gas law, energy law and policy, international petroleum, and environmental and natural resources law. She is a co-author of the nationally used casebook titled Energy, Economics and the Environment, and the treatise International Petroleum Exploration & Exploitation Agreements (Barrows Publishing 2009). She also co-authors the Texas Law of Oil and Gas, a 3-volume treatise updated annually. Professor Lang Weaver has lectured on topics in international petroleum transactions in Africa (Uganda, Angola and Namibia), Kazakhstan (as a Fulbright scholar), Lisbon, Bangkok and Beijing and is a frequent conference speaker in the United States. She has written articles on energy markets, sustainable development in the international oil industry, comparative unitization laws in oil -producing nations, energy policy, and traditional oil and gas law topics. Professor Weaver holds a B.A. in Economics from Harvard University, a Candidate of Philosophy degree in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles, and a J.D. degree from the University of Houston Law Centre.

Daniel J. Fitzwilliam, Attorney-at-law, Fitzwilliam, Stone, Furness-Smith & Morgan, Trinidad and Tobago. His legal career spans over 30 years. One of the foremost commercial attorneys in Trinidad and Tobago, his practice is particularly focused on Oil and Gas and Foreign Investment in major industrial projects. He has acted for and advised multiple oil and gas companies concerned with exploration, production and development projects in Trinidad and Tobago both onshore and offshore. He regularly advises on petroleum legislation, petroleum licences and production sharing contracts and has been involved in numerous large scale high profile transactions including multi-party farm-in agreements with split horizons, Government privatisation in the iron and steel industry, joint ventures in the liquefied natural gas, ammonia, methanol, offshore petroleum and construction industries, investments in an iron carbide facility in a free zone, a direct reduced iron plant, air separation plants, a power generation project, proposed aluminium and downstream plastics manufacturing projects, take-over bids on the Stock Exchange, and IPOs and merger and acquisition work over a wide range of industries.

As Managing Counsel for BP Trinidad and Tobago LLC Wendy-Fae Thompson manages a team of attorneys who provide legal counsel to support BP's global strategy and protect and defend BP’s operations in Trinidad and Tobago. The legal services include identifying, prioritizing and determining acceptable levels of risk in service of BP meeting the world’s energy needs and growing long-term shareholder value, significant interaction with key international business partners across major jurisdictions in which BP operates and development of and interaction with networks across BP’s businesses worldwide.

Ahren Tryon, Founder at Tryon Law Firm, Texas, USA. He is a seasoned corporate attorney and former federal agency counsel focused on the energy, water and infrastructure sectors.  He is a co-founder of TDG Energy LLC, which develops turnkey built, financed and operated clean energy projects that provide highly reliable and economic sources of power to industrial, commercial and government customers. TDG leverages its partners' years of experience in renewable and fossil generation asset development and transactions, along with expertise in regulatory, financing and site control issues to craft optimal solutions for each client. His boutique legal practice, Tryon Law Firm, combines complementary skills in transactions, regulation and litigation to help both corporate and government clients.  Tryon has worked with clients on US$30 million to $8 billion M&A and asset transactions, critical and long-range regulatory compliance issues, and administrative and court proceedings.

Terry Follen FCMA, CGMA, is the Founder and Principal of Hydrocarbon College - a joint venture of industry experts offering a range of courses specific to the oil and gas industry based in the United Kingdom. In an oil and gas career of over 30 years, he has lived and worked in the UK, Trinidad and Tobago, India and the Yemen leading, managing and developing multi-cultural and cross-functional teams. His industry experience includes Business Development, Investment Appraisal, Accounting, Financial Reporting, Corporate Governance, Joint Venture Audit, Economic Analysis, Business Analysis, Commercial Agreements, Stage Gate Assurance and negotiation of Production Sharing Contracts/Joint Operating Agreements.

Alicia Elias-Roberts is Deputy Dean, Faculty of Law and Lecturer. She is a graduate from the University of Guyana, where she obtained a LLB Law Degree. She is also the recipient of a Masters of Law (BCL) from the University of Oxford in the UK and an LLM in Energy, Environment and Natural Resource Law from the University of Houston in Texas, USA, where she was an OAS/LASPAU scholar. She also has a Certificate in Legislative Drafting from the Commonwealth Secretariat and the University of Guyana and a Postgraduate Certificate in University Teaching and Learning from The UWI. She holds a Legal Education Certificate from the Hugh Wooding Law School and is admitted to practice in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and New York. She has over 13 years’ experience as a law lecturer and was a former Head of Department of Law at the University of Guyana. More recently Mrs. Elias-Roberts developed a course on Oil and Gas Law at The UWI. The course is designed to give students an understanding of the fundamental legal issues associated with the oil and gas industry and it is the first time that this course is being taught in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

 

About The UWI

Since its inception in 1948, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged, regional University with well over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest, most longstanding higher education provider in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with four campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Open Campus. The UWI has faculty and students from more than 40 countries and collaborative links with 160 universities globally; it offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology and Social Sciences. UWI’s seven priority focal areas are linked closely to the priorities identified by CARICOM and take into account such over-arching areas of concern to the region as environmental issues, health and wellness, gender equity and the critical importance of innovation. Website: www.uwi.edu

 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

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