AIPN Seminar at NAPE 2022

Harry W. Sullivan Jr. is an International Energy Attorney based in Dallas, Texas, where he is an Executive Professor at Texas A&M School of Law and an Adjunct Professor at SMU’s Dedman School of Law. He also is an Assistant General Counsel for Kosmos Energy in their West Africa exploration activities. His previous experience includes fourteen years as Senior Counsel-International in the International E&P Legal Group of ConocoPhillips, Of Counsel with Thompson & Knight LLP, fifteen years as Chief Counsel-International and Senior Counsel for Atlantic Richfield Company and five years as Senior Counsel for Sun Oil Company. Mr. Sullivan has a J.D. degree from Louisiana State University School of Law and an LL.M. degree from Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law. He is licensed to practice law in the states of Louisiana and Texas and before the Supreme Court of the United States, and he is Board Certified in Oil, Gas and Mineral Law in Texas. He is also admitted as a Solicitor in England and Wales. His practice and experience focus on the upstream and midstream oil and gas industry, both in the U.S.A. and internationally.

Norman Nadorff is Counsel to the Mayer Brown law firm. His practice centers on international energy law and transactions and ethics law compliance. For 30 years, Norman served as in-house counsel for major oil companies with primary focus on Latin America, West Africa and Indonesia. He was Senior Counsel for BP in Angola from 2006 to 2015 as well as Legal Manager for BP Brazil and ARCO Indonesia, where he held two expatriate assignments in the 1990’s.

Norman has drafted and negotiated a wide range legal instruments, including host government, farmout, joint operating, joint study and bidding, EPC, drilling and drilling services, gas sales, shareholder, joint venture, and project finance agreements. At ARCO, Norman wrote the Company’s policies on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, US Anti-boycott laws and US Export Regulations. He has participated in corruption, fraud, conflict of interest and hostage-taking investigations.

Norman has been Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center since 2012 and has taught International Petroleum Agreements in several US and foreign law schools. In 2006, he played key roles in the creation of a pioneering international oil and gas master’s program at Angola’s national law school, which is now in its fourteenth year. 

Norman is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, proficient in French, and has experience negotiating in all three languages. He is a Director of the Brazil-Texas Chamber of Commerce and former Director of the AIPN in which he is active in several capacities. Norman lectures frequently on anti-corruption laws, effective contract drafting and development of local talent.

Eric Fry most recently served as an Executive in Residence for the Energy Management Program at UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business and has over 35 years of experience in the domestic and international upstream oil and gas business. Prior to the UT engagement, he was with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation as a Director – International Negotiations where he led a negotiations group, responsible for all non-U.S. negotiation activities within Anadarko’s international exploration portfolio.

Previous to his experience at Anadarko, Eric was Director of Worldwide Negotiations for Pioneer Natural Resources, responsible for negotiating business development and commercial transactions relating to Pioneer’s international and domestic portfolio, including a three-year stint with Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation as Manager of Business Development. He started with a 12-year career with Phillips Petroleum, working first as a Landman, and later as Senior International Negotiator, and Team Leader for the Unitization of Bahuguna Project in the Zone of Cooperation. He has conducted negotiations and performed business development activities in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Mr. Fry graduated from the University of Texas, graduating with degrees in Finance and Petroleum Land Management. Since joining the AIPN in 1989, he has held many Committee and Officer Positions and was AIPN President 2000-2001. He has been instrumental in initiating and participating in the AIPN Student Outreach Program for the last twenty years.

Bill Pugh handles complex maritime and energy-related matters for oil and gas producers and other Texas, Louisiana and Gulf region businesses, including contract disputes, insurance disputes and energy transactions.  He has earned a reputation for responsiveness, an ability to translate complicated concepts and for having extensive, pioneering experience analyzing, drafting and reviewing sophisticated energy-related contracts and insurance, indemnity and other contract issues.

His practice includes master service agreements, onshore and offshore drilling contracts, charters, flight service agreements, onshore and offshore construction contracts and other maritime and energy-related agreements.  He has also helped international and domestic corporations, which often become Bill's long-term clients, integrate their contracts internally and following mergers or assignment of contracts (such as drilling contracts).

"Anti-indemnity statutes vary from state to state," Bill notes, "often with nuanced pitfalls.  One of my jobs is to offer our client ways to maximize its allocation of risk through indemnity and insurance."  

Bill was managing partner of the firm’s Houston office and served several terms on Liskow's Board of Directors.

John Almy is a business lawyer who focuses on the creation, drafting and negotiation of oilfield operational contracts with experience in both domestic and international work.  John has extensive experience helping clients design and implement risk allocation programs using indemnity and insurance concepts for work in Texas, Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, and has assisted clients with their endeavors in locations stretching from Colorado to Israel and North Dakota to Venezuela. 

Clients routinely turn to John for help with drilling contracts, master service agreements and master time charters among other agreements. John also advises clients with respect to indemnity arrangements in areas outside of oilfield service contracts, from downstream oil and gas contexts to construction contracts, and even real estate deals, including the impact of relevant state law on those agreements.

Frank Cascio has represented clients in oil and gas and other energy related matters for almost fifty years.  His current practice is limited to acting as advisory counsel on transactional matters, expert witness/arbitration consultations and teaching courses on international transactional documents and negotiations.

After a short stint in academia, he began his career in the oil business working in-house at Exxon Company, USA, primarily in domestic upstream projects.  He began his international practice in 1984, travelling to Accra, Ghana to negotiate his first international contract.  It was not the ideal destination to begin a new phase of his career.  But the challenge of working internationally was seductive and since that time his practice has been composed almost entirely of international upstream energy transactions.

After more than twenty years of working in-house, he transitioned to a law firm and joined Jackson Walker LLP in Houston.  In April 2001, he and Jim Barnes established Barnes & Cascio, LLP, a boutique law firm that limited its practice solely to international upstream transactional energy projects for a select client base.  He frequently functioned as in-house general counsel on projects and his work almost always included first-chair negotiations. Barnes & Cascio ceased operations in mid-2015 following the retirement of Mr. Barnes.  His current geographical focus area is the Pacific Rim, primarily China, and most of the oil producing countries of sub-Saharan West Africa, but primarily Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal.

Frank is a New Orleans native and received a BA in History from the University of New Orleans and a Juris Doctorate from Louisiana State University.