Brennan, Patrick J.
Bennett Jones LLP
(403) 298-3433
brennanp@bennettjones.com
Mr. Brennan acts in bank-
ing and debt financing
transactions, asset-based
financing and leasing, per-
sonal property security, debt
restructuring, aircra acquisi-
tion, disposition, leasing and
financing,commercial trans-
actions and aviation law.
Buckingham, Janice
Osler, Hoskin
& Harcourt LLP
(403) 260-7006
jbuckingham@osler.com
Ms. Buckingham's energy
practice focuses on the
development, acquisition
and divestiture of complex
projects and investments
in Canada and in LNG
projects exporting from
Canada. She also advises on
issues arising from industry
standard agreements.
Bursey, David W.
Bennett Jones LLP
(604) 891-5128
burseyd@bennettjones.com
Mr. Bursey's regulatory
practice focuses on energy
project development and
regulation, environmental
assessment, water resource
management and Aborig-
inal law. He advises natural
resource industry clients,
First Nations and govern-
ment agencies.
Brown, Darryl J.
Gowling Lafleur
Henderson LLP
(416) 369-4581
darryl.brown@gowlings.com
Mr. Brown's practice fo-
cuses on infrastructure, P3 and
construction law. He dras
and negotiates project agree-
ments, construction contracts,
operating agreements and
other contracts, and regularly
represents sponsors, operators
and design builders.
Burgess, Patrick W.
Dentons Canada LLP
(403) 268-7149
patrick.burgess@dentons.com
Mr. Burgess's energy law prac-
tice embraces international
and domestic transactions
relating to JVs and asset and
corporate acquisitions. He
maintains strong relation-
ships with CAPP, EPAC,
CAPL & CELF, and is active
in AIPN & RMMLF.
Buttigieg, Bryan J.
Miller omson LLP
(416) 595-8172
bbuttigieg@millerthomson.
com
Certified as a Specialist
in Environmental Law by
e Law Society of Upper
Canada, Mr. Buttigieg has
expertise in civil litigation,
regulatory defence, due
diligence, compliance,
environmental approvals,
brownfields development
& contaminated land.
Trouble is, oil and gas prices are in the
dumps. And that makes it harder to sell
companies or to assemble the funding to
build companies. Making it harder still,
Buckingham says, is the trend toward in-
creasingly complex and expensive drilling
and fracking technologies needed to extract
previously inaccessible reserves. A decade
ago, Ross says, a start-up company needed
to raise about $25 million to drill perhaps
two dozen conventional wells and work up
enough oil and gas production to support
further exploration.
"Now," he says, "you're betting on far
fewer wells for the same amount of money,
so you need a much bigger capital pool" to
drill more wells and reduce the risk of fail-
ure. "Now you need $120 million for a five-
year runway," and, he says, repeated private
placements of $20 million to $30 million
aren't realistic.
All this is why private equity is becom-
ing a larger factor in the Canadian energy
sector, according to the lawyers who write
the deals.
"It's a very capital-intensive and trans-
PRIVATE EQUITY
|
9
action-intensive environment," says Dar-
rell Peterson, with the Calgary head office
of Bennett Jones LLP. He says it's a hot-
house deal environment, in part, because
the headquarters of the entire Canadian
oil and gas sector are concentrated in a ten-
square-block area of office towers and "you
can literally just walk around" to meet with
all the potential players. e resulting deal
velocity, he says, is part of the attraction for
private equities.
"e demise of the income trust sector
really was the kick-off for private equities,"
says John Mercury, co-head of Bennett
Jones's PE practice.
Osler's Ross says that, until the federal
government killed energy income trusts in
2006, "the natural buyers of small- and mid-
sized oil and gas companies were the trusts
and when they disappeared they le a sig-
nificant gap."
Torys's Neville Jugnauth says income
trusts were a "made-for-Calgary kind of
model" that bought producing assets away
from exploration companies. Trust inves-
tors got quarterly cash distributions from
the income trusts, while exploration com-
panies got the money they needed to prove
up more reserves.
e trusts were succeeded by state-
owned enterprises (SOEs), such as Petronas
of Malaysia and several Chinese companies.
