About

Number of years practice: 33 Principal practice areas: Energy transactions and projects Bar admissions: California, District of Columbia, New York, Texas Languages spoken: English

Houston-based Boyd Carano is a member of Vinson & Elkins’ energy industry and worldwide project finance and development practice groups. For more than 25 years, he has built a practice focused on international business transactions, and has represented clients in more than 100 international engagements. He has acted as lead counsel to multinational companies and partnerships in a variety of energy transactions in North America, Asia, and Latin America, and has also acted for clients in the financial, manufacturing, hospitality, and real estate sectors. His deep expertise in Mexico-facing matters has seen him lead on a number of hugely important, market-leading deals for both US- and Mexico-based clients, including advising on the formation of Riverstone Holdings’ equity commitment to Sierra Oil & Gas, Mexico’s first independent exploration and production company. Mexico’s energy reforms have catalysed a number of interesting engagements for Vinson & Elkins, including the successful bid by its client Talos Energy for two offshore blocks as part of the upstream bid rounds that opened in 2015. ‘We continue to advise clients on bid rounds and farmouts, and hope to do much more of it in the balance of 2018 and beyond’, says Carano. ‘These upstream projects are important and exciting, and right in our wheelhouse. I’ve noticed that a growing percentage of our work in Mexico has been in energy infrastructure development, such as assisting pipeline companies on cross-border and Mexican lateral pipeline projects, and private equity portfolio companies and others in joint ventures and contractual arrangements for local storage and transportation of refined products from the US and elsewhere. Perhaps indicatively, all of this work is directly related to the anticipated integration of the North American energy market.’ Currently based in Houston, Carano previously worked in Palo Alto, Mexico City, New York, and Singapore.