About

The Exploration and Production (E&P) legal team at CEPSA has an area of responsibility that is divided into the following business units within the E&P area of Algeria, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Abu Dhabi, dealing with new business and emerging assets and with an additional team that deals with all corporate matters, and a lawyer responsible for each of the assets. Currently there are 12 lawyers in the E&P legal team: eight are based in Madrid, three in Colombia and one in Algeria, two paralegals are based in Colombia and one in Madrid. If required, lawyers from this team will coordinate with other colleagues in the E&P legal team, CEPSA’s legal team or with external lawyers to provide specific legal assistance. ‘That means that each asset has a focus lawyer that coordinates and provides full legal support. This is highly valued by the asset managers, as they just have to liaise with one lawyer that is fully aware of all legal matters in the asset or unit’, says head of legal and exploration and production, Natalia Bodalo. After successfully implementing a strong legal culture within the E&P business and having achieved the objective of being involved in the day-to-day activities and in early stages of a project or potential conflict, the legal team are now involved in supporting each asset manager in implementing a file manager system for contracts, official documentation and correspondence. ‘Within the team there is a great combination of lawyers with past experience in international law firms, international service companies and in the energy sector. There are lawyers of five different nationalities and we cover seven languages’, says senior lawyer, Cesar Lozano. The legal E&P team is highly motivated, and willing to work and give the best possible legal support to the business. They have gone on to play a key role in a number of relevant new business opportunities projects and disputes. Amongst these is their participation in the signature of a new concession contract in Abu Dhabi in February 2018. With help from the legal team, CEPSA successfully acquired a 20% participating interest in a 40% years concession and has paid a participation fee of US$1.5bn. This has been their first contract in Abu Dhabi which will bring a substantial increase of CEPSA’s oil reserves. ‘It has been a very complex project as Abu Dhabi was implementing a new concession and operating model, which implied a number of highly complicated legal questions and challenges to be solved’, says Bodalo.