Jennifer Josefson’s 20+-year career has focused on international, cross-border transactions covering Russia, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Africa, while acting on market-leading transactions with an emphasis on the oil, gas, liquefied natural gas, petrochemical, power, mining, and natural resource sectors.

Representing clients across the spectrum of energy industries, Jennifer regularly advises on acquisitions and divestitures, mergers, joint ventures, joint operating agreements, concessions, production sharing agreements, farm-ins, supply, and service agreements. She also handles the commercial agreements regularly used by energy companies for revenue generation, raw materials and feedstock inputs, financing, and facilities operations and maintenance.

Throughout her career, Jennifer has actively contributed to the development of international oil and gas contracting standards through her work with the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN). She has been a member of the AIEN Board of Directors and served as its President. She also has held numerous other positions with the organization, including as founding regional director of the CIS Chapter. Jennifer is a standing faculty member for AIEN’s international oil and gas contracting training courses—the Short Course and the Core Course.

Consistently recognized as a top energy and natural resource lawyer, Jennifer has been is ranked a Tier 1 Energy lawyer by both Chambers Global and Chambers Europe, and she has been consecutively named Lawyer of the Year – Russia for oil & gas, energy, mining, and natural resources by Best Lawyers. She is also regularly recognized by IFLR1000 and Who’s Who of International Energy Lawyers.

Ricardo Silva is an Attorney, and a Partner at Miranda & Associados (Miranda Law Firm) in Lisbon, Portugal, and one of the Firm’s Co-Heads of Energy and Coordinator of its Timor-Leste branch office.

Ricardo is qualified to practice in Portugal and Timor-Leste, and has significant experience in advising both private clients and sovereign States on oil & gas projects and regulatory matters, as well as in petroleum contract negotiations, and drafting of legislation. Major projects Ricardo has been involved in include: advising major and independent International Oil Companies (“IOC”) in negotiating Production Sharing Contracts (“PSC”) and Risk Services Contracts (“RSC”) in various African and Asian jurisdictions, including in the Pre-Salt play; advising investors in the structuring of various Liquefied Natural Gas (“LNG”) projects in East and West Africa; advising a sovereign State in S.E. Asia on the structuring of an LNG Project; advising an Asian oil & gas regulatory authority in the structuring of its downstream sector, including drafting of the overarching legislation and respective regulations, and presenting workshops and teaching training sessions to the agency’s staff; advising a S.E. Asian State in the drafting of a new Mining Code; advising an Asian NOC in reviewing the country’s oil & gas statutory, regulatory and PSC framework; representing a West African State before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and advising the State of Timor-Leste on petroleum matters related to the Maritime Boundary Delimitation process with Australia.

He is a graduate of the Lisbon University School of Law, where he also attended the curricular program of the Master’s Degree in Juridical-Political Sciences. Ricardo has been active in lecturing, providing training, making presentations and writing articles on oil & gas matters for national and international publications and institutions. He is a Board Member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) and an active member of the American Bar Association, where he held the positions of Vice-Chair, and Co-Chair of the ABA’s Section of International Law Africa Committee, Vice-Chair of the International Energy & Natural Resources Committee, and Liaison to the Portuguese Bar Association.

From 2006 to the end of 2008 Ricardo was the Head of Miranda’s Houston Liaison Office. He is a national of both Portugal and Australia.
 

David Juarez-Navarro is a Lead Negotiator and Commercial Advisor for ExxonMobil.

During the 23 years working for ExxonMobil in various countries with regional and global reach, David has held numerous commercial positions of responsibility in different parts of the value chain related to complex multibillion investment projects.

Since 2021 he is responsible for LNG Marketing matters and negotiations in Qatar.

The previous 10 years he has been in charge of identifying, evaluating and pursuing new exploration and production opportunities (e.g. bid rounds); leading the negotiation of agreements with prospective partners (AMI, JSBA, JOA, FOA, etc.); and discussing with Host Governments the commercial and legal framework necessary to attract private investors and develop long term win-win relationships.

Within that context, he contributed for instance to the success of the opening of Mexico to private exploration and production investors as part of the working group that collaborated with the Mexican Government to develop the Exploration & Production PSC and License model contracts that later were executed by the bid rounds winners. He has made contributions of the same nature in other countries in Latin-America, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa.

David has collaborated with the Mexican Association of Hydrocarbon Producers (AMEXHI) as member of the Finance and Resources Access committees.

David has contributed to the AIPN in several capacities such as the co-development of the “Above Ground Risk” course or speaking and moderating at several AIPN events in different countries. He has served as member of several Committees and holding some leadership positions including as current Director to the Board of Directors.

Elias Nucette is currently the Senior Deal Lead within Shell’s global New Business Development division based in London, UK. He has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector. Elias started his career in Venezuela as a lawyer for Shell, working on a wide range of legal, regulatory, fiscal and commercial matters across the energy value chains. After holding the role of Legal Manager for Shell Venezuela, he moved to Shell’s headquarters joining the global commercial and new business development division.

For over 15 years, Elias has participated and led negotiations for energy projects in multiple jurisdictions such as the Middle East, Russia, China and Africa. Prior to his current role as Senior Deal Lead, he was Commercial Manager for Contracts & Agreements with Shell and prior to that he was a lead negotiator for Shell’s global exploration new ventures division. He has a law degree from the University of Zulia in Venezuela and a Master of Laws from Cornell University in the USA.