Financing Oil & Gas and Mining Acquisitions and Projects

ALEX RITCHIE is the Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Foundation. He comes to the Foundation from the University of New Mexico School of Law, where he held the Leon Karelitz Chair in Oil and Gas Law and taught oil and gas law, advanced oil and gas law, property law, natural resources law, energy law, and business associations.  Before joining the UNM law faculty, Alex was Senior Corporate Counsel for Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc., based in Denver.  Alex joined Suncor in 2009 after ten years in the Energy and Natural Resources and Corporate Transactions practice groups at Bryan Cave LLP (formerly Holme Roberts & Owen LLP).  In addition to numerous Foundation papers and law review articles, Alex is a co-author of the Tenth Edition of Cases and Materials: The Law of Oil and Gas (Foundation Press 2016) (with Martin, Kramer and Hall).  Over the course of his career, Alex has represented clients in oil and gas, mining, corporate, securities, commercial, mergers and acquisitions, and environmental matters.

REBECCA W. WATSON is a shareholder in the law firm of Welborn Sullivan Meck & Tooley, P.C. in Denver and serves on the Board of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Foundation as Vice President and President-elect (2019-2020).  Rebecca has a distinguished 40-year career representing natural resource, oil and gas and renewable energy clients and in high-level public service in the federal government. As Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management of the U.S. Department of Interior in the George W. Bush administration, she had oversight over 3 energy resource bureaus including BLM, led 12,000 employees and managed a $1 billion budget. Prior to that, she served as Assistant General Counsel for Energy Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy. Rebecca was named the 2011 Distinguished Natural Resources Practitioner-in-Residence at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, her alma mater, and has been repeatedly nationally recognized as a top energy and natural resources lawyer. She speaks and writes frequently on public land and energy topics.  Rebecca is a Trustee on the Board of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West museum in Cody, Wyoming and serves on the Jefferson County, Colorado Open Space Advisory Committee.

JOEL BENSON is a partner with Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP, in Denver. Mr. Benson focuses on domestic and international debt financings, acquisitions and divestitures, commercial transactions, and project development, with specialized expertise working with mining and natural resources companies and private equity investors. He has been selected to The International Who’s Who of Mining Lawyers each year since 2011 and has earned an AV Preeminent® Peer Review RatingTM from Martindale-Hubbell® since 2006. In 2016, Who’s Who Legal named Mr. Benson as one of the ten “most highly regarded individuals” in the Northern Hemisphere for mining law and as one of the ten “thought leaders” in North American for mining law in 2017 and 2018. He also has been named in The Best Lawyers in America© for Oil & Gas Law. Mr. Benson is also an adjunct professor of mining law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law (since 2012). He frequently advises private equity funds and mining company clients on their acquisitions, investments, joint ventures, project development, and other business activities. He has extensive experience with structuring and documenting complex credit arrangements and associated multi-jurisdictional collateral security arrangements involving a variety of industries, in the United States and around the world. Mr. Benson’s debt financing practice involves representing both borrowers and lenders (including banks, private equity funds, merchant banks, and other financial institutions) in international project finance, mezzanine debt, corporate credit facilities, senior secured facilities, royalty financings, streaming transactions, gold loans, senior and subordinated note offerings, and other financing arrangements. His international transactional practice has involved projects and companies in over twenty-five countries, including the U.S., Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Ghana, Honduras, Kenya, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic, Spain, Thailand, and Turkey, and has covered numerous minerals, including gold, silver, rare earths, platinum/palladium, uranium, cobalt, nickel, iron ore, zinc, copper, and other metals, industrial minerals, thermal and metallurgical coal, and oil and gas. His work with international projects has led to counseling clients with respect to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

LEE FANYO is a Director with Lewis, Bess, Williams & Weese in Denver, Colorado. He advises public and private companies and their management on acquisitions, dispositions, financing, and other matters that affect business operations. He has substantial experience in representing the energy industry. He currently serves on the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation’s Special Institutes Committee. After graduating from the University of Denver College of Law, Lee served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Justice Allison H. Eid on the Colorado Supreme Court. Before law school, Lee worked as an engineer where he assisted in the design of satellites and defensive missiles. He earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Colorado School of Mines.

JARED A. HEMBREE is a partner in the Roswell, New Mexico office of Hinkle Shanor LLP and is an adjunct professor at Washington & Lee University School of Law, where he teaches Oil and Gas Law. His primary practice is in oil and gas law, including title examination, transactions, and litigation. Mr. Hembree is a Trustee of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation and is on the faculty for the RMMLF Federal Oil and Gas Leasing Short Course. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico and has served in various capacities for the American Association of Professional Landmen and the New Mexico Landmen’s Association.  Mr. Hembree received a J.D. from Washington & Lee University School of Law in 2005.  While at Washington & Lee, Mr. Hembree served as an Editor for the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy’s 2005 Symposium Edition and as Chairman of the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Distinguished Lecture Series.  He graduated with Honors receiving a B.A. in History with a Minor in Museum Studies from Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana in 2000.  Mr. Hembree sits on the boards of directors for a number of civic organizations, including the Eastern New Mexico State Fair.

LEE FANYO is a Director with Lewis, Bess, Williams & Weese in Denver, Colorado. He advises public and private companies and their management on acquisitions, dispositions, financing, and other matters that affect business operations. He has substantial experience in representing the energy industry. He currently serves on the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation’s Special Institutes Committee. After graduating from the University of Denver College of Law, Lee served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Justice Allison H. Eid on the Colorado Supreme Court. Before law school, Lee worked as an engineer where he assisted in the design of satellites and defensive missiles. He earned B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Colorado School of Mines.

JEREMY GRIGGS, Guggenheim Partners, Houston, TX

MONICA K. LOSEMAN, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, Denver, CO

TREVOR WOMMACK is a partner in the Houston office of Latham & Watkins and a member of the firm’s Finance Department.  Mr. Wommack advises foreign and domestic lending institutions as administrative agents in connection with upstream exploration and production and minerals, midstream, and oilfield services credit facilities. He also represents clients navigating forbearance, workout, and bankruptcy situations.  Mr. Wommack regularly advises clients on the structuring, negotiating, and documenting of all types of syndicated lending transactions, reserve-based lending transactions, revolving loans, term loans, letter of credit facilities, and swingline facilities. Mr. Wommack has been recognized as a leading lawyer in Chambers USA for his work in Banking & Finance Law in Texas from 2013-2019. He received his J.D., with honors, from the University of Texas School of Law and his B.A. from the University of North Carolina.

JOHN T. BRADFORD is Of Counsel with the energy and natural resource law firm of Liskow & Lewis in Houston, Texas. He earned his B.S. in Accounting at the University of Illinois in 1977; his J.D. in Law at the University of Illinois College of Law in 1980; and his Master of Laws in Taxation at the University of Houston Law Center in 1991. Mr. Bradford practices energy and natural resources taxation, finance and corporate law at the state, federal, and international levels. His practice involves advising clients on the tax and business consequences of their acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, financing activities, hedging activities, and day-to-day business operations. He has advised clients regarding structuring complex energy and natural resources joint ventures, asset acquisitions and dispositions, and structured financings. He has represented clients before the Internal Revenue Service on audit, administrative appeal, and for private letter ruling requests. He has extensive experience in the energy and natural resources industry, having practiced for more than 18 years as a tax lawyer for Exxon Corporation (now Exxon Mobil Corporation), having worked in energy and natural resource investment banking at JP Morgan Securities, and having most recently advised clients as a principal in KPMG LLP’s Washington National Tax practice. Mr. Bradford is a frequent speaker on energy and natural resource taxation matters, having presented to the American Petroleum Institute Federal Tax Forum, the University of Texas Parker C. Fielder Oil and Gas Tax Conference, the Texas Federal Tax Institute, the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, the Tax Executives Institute, the American Bar Association Section of Taxation Energy and Environmental Taxes and Banking and Savings Institutions Committees, the American Bar Association Business Law Section, the Houston Bar Association Tax and Oil and Gas Sections, the Practising Law Institute, the South Texas College of Law Houston’s Energy Symposium and Annual Institute for Attorneys and Landmen, KPMG LLP’s Global Energy Conference, and the Liskow & Lewis Energy Law Seminar. His articles have been published by The Journal of Taxation, the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, the University of Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy Law, the University of Houston Business and Tax Law Journal, Oil, Gas & Energy Quarterly, Oil and Gas Financial Journal, the University of North Texas Institute of Petroleum Accounting’s Petroleum Accounting and Financial Management Journal, and the KPMG Global Energy Institute. Mr. Bradford has been a guest lecturer on oil and gas taxation at Georgetown University School of Law and currently is Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, where he teaches a seminar class on Energy and Natural Resource Transactions.

ALLISON MCKENNA DONOVAN, Hogan Lovells US LLP, Denver, CO

DAVID G. EBNER negotiates and documents exploration and production deals around the world. He has devoted a substantial amount of time to coal, uranium, and hard rock transactions over the years, but the majority of his practice focuses on oil and gas. For the past decade, he has worked on increasingly unusual transactions, especially custom production sharing agreements with foreign governments and sophisticated vendor finance transactions for domestic drilling, but he still does title opinions, farmouts, and other everyday oil and gas work. Mr. Ebner relishes the challenge of taking complicated business transactions and distilling them into clear, logical documents. He enjoys the chance to work with clients who know and appreciate high quality documentation prepared under tight time constraints, as well as the chance to work with other members of the relatively small natural resources legal community, many of whom are personal friends. Mr. Ebner graduated from Brown University in 1973 and Harvard Law School in 1976. He has served as chair of the Mineral Law Section of the Colorado Bar Association, president of the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, AMAX Distinguished Natural Resources practitioner-in-residence at the University of Denver College of Law, and as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver teaching the negotiation of Natural Resources Agreements. He has been with the firm since he graduated law school.

ELLEN CONLEY is an associate in the Energy, Power and Natural Resources Practice Group in the Houston office of Haynes and Boone. She handles energy finance matters, as well as the acquisition and disposition of oil and gas properties. She represents lenders and borrowers in secured reserved-base credit facilities, and has experience with a variety of transactions, including ISDA master agreements and schedules and oil and gas purchase and sale agreements.