About

Cotemar provides services for the oil industry relating to offshore oil field development, maritime support operations and highly specialised vessels. Led by general counsel, Alejandro Fernandez Ramirez Buendia, the current legal team of 12 staff has only existed for four years. In this time, the team has already built efficient internal practices in order to reduce cost and maximise added value on certain projects with external firms. Exemplifying this internal commitment, it designed and implemented software for contract administration with suppliers, which allowed the team to know the maturity of their guarantees and terms of the contract among other things. According to Ramirez Buendia, the team is incredibly results-focussed, preparing its activities well in advance in order to understand ‘the tools, stakeholders and possible blockers in our path to achieve the goals’ of the company. The team was hailed for playing a ‘strategic part’ when Cotemar was recently awarded two licence contracts for exploration and production for a 20 year period. In setting up a new subsidiary that will hold the license contracts, it created a new business line for the company, a particular success in the currently troubled oil and gas market. Other recent achievements of the team include closing two construction contracts in China for two semi-submersible platforms with a joint price of $600m, closing a syndicated loan and the issuing private bonds in a European market. Ramirez Buendia says ‘the most challenging changes that we have faced in recent months is the oil and gas market situation that makes us re-invent how we address certain issues, opinions and litigations in order to be more effective’. By embracing these challenges, the legal team has been able to adapt and generate creative solutions for their business counterparts. In light of this proactive mind-set he is ‘confident that in the near future we can see more stability (in the oil and gas market) and therefore new projects’. Notable members of the team include: Maria Fernanda Tirado, who acts as oil services superintendent ‘effectively and proactively’; Mauricio Villarreal, the corporate superintendent who ‘regulates almost 2,000 suppliers and mitigates any liability to the company’; and Juan Carlos Aguilar, who as litigation superintendent gives the team confidence that rulings at trials will be given in Cotemar’s favour.