George Venables is an Of Counsel in the London office of Gibson Dunn and is a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions, Energy and Infrastructure and Oil and Gas Practice Groups.
George has a broad corporate practice advising on complex commercial transactions, with a focus on the energy and infrastructure sectors. His experience spans upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas, power and renewables and energy infrastructure. He has advised a range of clients on the full spectrum of mergers and acquisitions, project development, and joint ventures both in the UK and internationally.
George’s experience includes advising on country entry, including asset acquisitions, farm-ins, and PSC and JOA negotiations across multiple jurisdictions including: Algeria, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, the Falkland Islands, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.
Selected experience*:
- Chevron on the $2.17 billion sale of its interest in the SRC Refinery in Singapore, and its fuels station networks and related businesses in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Australia to ENEOS Corporation
- TotalEnergies on the merger of its UKCS upstream business with NEO NEXT to become the leading shareholder (47.5%) in the expanded NEO NEXT+ joint venture, alongside HitecVision (28.875%) and Repsol (23.625%), forming the largest independent oil and gas producer in the UKCS
- MidOcean Energy, an LNG company formed and managed by EIG Global Energy Partners, on its acquisition of a 20% interest in PETRONAS’ interest in the LNG Canada Project, by way of acquisition of a 20% interest in the North Montney Upstream Joint Venture and a 20% interest in the North Montney LNG Limited Partnership, and the entry into associated joint venture arrangements to govern such investment
- EIG Global Energy Partners on its acquisition of a 25% equity interest stake in Repsol Upstream, a newly formed global oil and gas exploration and production company holdings Repsol’s global upstream oil and gas portfolio, for US$4.8 billion, and the associated joint venture arrangements
- Chevron on the disposal of its UK North Sea upstream business to Ithaca Energy for US$1.6billion
- ExxonMobil on the sale of material Nigerian oil and gas assets to Seplat Energy
- ExxonMobil on the disposal of upstream and midstream assets in Chad and Cameroon, including its interest in the Chad-Cameroon pipeline, to Savannah Energy plc
- Navitas Petroleum on the acquisition of a 65% stake in the Sea Lion project, an oil field located offshore of the Falkland Islands, via the acquisition of Premier Oil Exploration and Production from Harbour Energy and participating interests from Rockhopper Exploration
- SierraCol Energy (a portfolio company of the Carlyle Group) on its US$825 million acquisition of Occidental Petroleum’s entire onshore oil and gas portfolio in Colombia
- The Carlyle Group on the proposed acquisition of a portfolio of gas-weighted exploration and production assets in Italy, Egypt, and Croatia from Energean
- RWE on its acquisition of the Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind portfolio from Vattenfall
- RWE on the sale of a 49% equity interest in the Dogger Bank South wind farm project to Masdar, and entry into the associated joint venture arrangements
- GIC on its investment, alongside Partners Group, TPG Rise Climate and Mubadala, into Techem, an international provider of digitally enabled solutions for the real estate sector, at an enterprise value of around EUR 6.7 billion
- KKR on its £3.4billion acquisition of Encavis, a German headquartered independent power producer with solar parks and onshore wind farms in 12 European countries
- ADNOC and OMV on acquiring Nova Chemicals from Mubadala for $13.4 billion
- GIC on acquiring an approximately 45% shareholding in GasLog, an international owner, operator, and manager of LNG carriers, from BlackRock
- Chevron on the US$900 million sale of its refinery and fuels network in South Africa and Botswana to Sinopec
* Some of these representations occurred prior to George’s association with Gibson Dunn.
Capabilities
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Energy and Infrastructure
- Infrastructure
- Oil and Gas
- Power and Renewables
- Projects
Credentials
Education:
- BPP Law School - 2014 Legal Practice Course
- College of Law, London - 2012 Graduate Diploma in Law
- University College London - 2011 Master of Science
- University of Warwick - 2010 Bachelor of Arts
Admissions:
- England & Wales – Solicitor