Blog Post 03.19.25
Service
Projects
Praised as among the field’s premier legal advisers, Pillsbury’s Projects team uses its deep industry knowledge and deal experience to anticipate issues and find practical, cost-effective solutions to problems our clients face globally.
Pillsbury’s Projects team offers exemplary, integrated service across legal disciplines, advising on development, finance, acquisition and disposition, day-to-day operations and restructurings of complex energy, infrastructure, telecommunications and industrial projects. Possessing wide-ranging legal knowledge across the power industry, from renewables (wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass, biofuel, geothermal, energy storage) to gas-fired and other thermal to nuclear generation and transmission to hydrogen, oil and gas, mining and commodities and infrastructure, we have worked on every aspect of complex projects in 75 countries across six continents.
We provide innovative solutions to help our clients achieve their business objectives without compromise. Our team is adept at handling the full range of legal issues our clients face in the development process, including tax, permitting and environmental, real estate and political. We have handled every financing structure in use in today’s projects space, from bank debt to domestic and cross- border private placements to tax-exempt offerings, tax equity and sustainable finance. With offices in the world’s energy and finance capitals and through an extensive global network of local law firms, we provide flexible, efficient, on-the-ground legal counsel anywhere our clients’ projects take them.
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The Pillsbury Projects team has extensive experience in every sector. In the energy space, we cover oil and gas, where we have leading LNG prowess, with high-profile clients in big-ticket cross-border projects. Pillsbury’s experience representing independent power producers, other project developers, debt and equity providers and contractors in power generation and transmission follows on decades of experience working with investor-owned utilities and their underwriters and lenders.
We are also highly regarded for bringing dynamic and market-based perspective to public-private partnership projects. Our P3 clients include consortia bidding on projects, their funders, government authorities, contractors and national oil companies.
Pillsbury Projects lawyers advise and assist clients throughout their projects’ life cycle, from bidding through design, construction, operation, maintenance and post-completion issues, including exit strategies.
The services we provide include advising on and assisting with:
- Project development, from permitting and land use to FERC, environmental and other regulatory permitting and licensing
- Project contracts, including concessions, engineering, procurement and construction agreements, offtake agreements and all other complex project contracts
- Operation, maintenance and post-completion issues
- Finance, including bank debt from bridge to construction to permanent financings, private placements under Section 4(a)(2) and Rule 144A, tax-exempt bonds and tax equity financing
- Project acquisition and disposition, including auctions for sellers and buyers
- Due diligence investigations, together with complex risk assessment, mitigation and allocation
- Cross-border ownership structuring and tax issues
- U.S. federal, state and local tax issues
Our broad sector experience includes:
- Power and energy, including gas-fired and other thermal generation renewables (wind, solar, hydroelectric, biomass, biofuel, geothermal) and fuels, nuclear generation and transmission
- Hydrogen-based energy technologies (including energy storage and distribution infrastructure)
- Oil and gas (including exploration and development, LNG and refining)
- Infrastructure, including airports, roads, bridges, rail, social projects such as courthouses, health care and higher education facilities
- Water, wastewater and waste treatment
- Mining and natural resources
- Industrial and manufacturing facilities
Representative Experience
- Advised Climate Investment in its investment in leading North American carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) development platform Trace Carbon Solutions.
- Served as counsel to Chevron Corporation, through its Chevron New Energies business, in its recent collaboration with Baseload Capital to develop geothermal projects in the U.S., leveraging geothermal operational experience along with core competencies from the traditional oil and gas sector.
- Advised leading private investment firm, Cerberus Capital Management, L.P., in a unique rare metals transaction—investing into Torngat Metals Ltd., a rare earth oxides producer.
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- Advised renewables developer Cerulean Winds on project to build one of the UK’s first oil and gas facilities powered by offshore wind.
- Advising Akkuyu NPP Power Generation in the development of its nuclear power plant project in Turkey.
- Represented Tenaska on the project financing of its 925 MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle electrical generating facility in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.
- Represented NextEra in connection with its $1+ billion acquisition of Trans Bay Cable, a 53-mile, high-voltage direct current underwater transmission cable system that supplies 40 percent of the electricity consumed in the city of San Francisco largely generated from wind and solar renewable electric power generating facilities.
- Advised Marubeni in connection with the Atlantic Wind Connection, a multibillion-dollar project to build an underwater transmission line along 350 miles of the Atlantic seaboard.
- Advising Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Group and its subsidiary Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems America on a variety of green and blue renewable hydrogen projects and related battery storage systems.
- Advised a major energy company on strategic permitting and CEQA advice in connection with permitting issues for hydrogen production at an oil refinery and with permitting and agency discussions for the safe management of hydrogen production and use.
- Represented America’s largest power generator on the $360 million term loan, energy tax credit and letter of credit facility project financing of a portfolio of 24 solar farms in North Carolina.
- Advised Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC), whose $20 billion contract with the Korea Electric Power Corporation to design, build and operate four 1,400 MW nuclear reactors for the project represents the largest nuclear power contract ever announced.
- Represented a Fortune 50 corporation in making over $500 million in investments in solar energy projects eligible for solar tax credits since 2013.
- Advised Softbank Group on a significant investment in Nemaska Lithium Inc., a Canadian chemical company developing one of the richest deposits in the world and producing lithium compounds.
- Advised BART, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit system, on rail transit and transit-oriented development, including energy service contracts and P3 transactions in California.
- Represented Sumitomo Chemical as a sponsor, regarding project documentation and financing of the $5.2 billion Rabigh, Saudi Arabia, refining and petrochemicals complex, PFI’s Middle East and Africa Petrochemical Deal of the Year.
- Represented CMS Energy in the acquisition of a majority stake in the Aviator Wind project, the largest single-phase and one-site onshore wind development in the U.S., with 191 wind turbines and total energy output of around 525 MW.
- Advised leading energy technology company Holtec International on its purchase of the Oyster Creek (OCEP) project from Exelon Generation. Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear power station in New Jersey. As the NRC license holders, OCEP and HDI will be responsible for decommissioning the plant and conservatively managing the plant’s decommissioning trust fund (DTF).
- Advised Midwest Fertilizer Corporation regarding its proposed development and financing of a $2+ billion fertilizer plant in Indiana, including the issuance of $1.259 billion in tax-exempt bonds.
- Represented JX Nippon Oil & Gas on the development and project financing of the $1 billion carbon capture and sequestration, pipeline and enhanced oil recovery project at the W.A. Parish power plant in Texas.
- Represented Toyota Tsusho in connection with multiple equity investments in gas-fired generation projects in the PJM wholesale electricity market.
Practice Area Highlights
- Pillsbury lawyers received 193 rankings in the 2024 edition of Best Lawyers.
- Chambers USA 2024 ranked Pillsbury in Transition and Electricity energy.
- The Legal 500 USA 2024 has ranked Pillsbury in Energy Transactions: Electric Power.
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- The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2024 listed Pillsbury as a leader in Tokyo in the Projects & Energy and Real Estate and Construction practice categories.
- The Legal 500 UK 2025 ranks 6 Pillsbury attorneys and 8 of the firm’s practices among the best in the United Kingdom, including rankings in the categories of Transport Finance & Leasing; International Arbitration; Emerging Markets; Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT); Data Protection, Privacy & Cybersecurity; International Trade, and Oil & Gas Projects. Additionally, the firm notably secured a first-time recognition for Power Projects (including Electricity and Nuclear).
- The 2023 edition of S. News & World Report ranked 98 of our practices #1 in their category, including Energy, Construction, Environmental, Tax, M&A, Securitization and Structured Finance, Corporate, Banking & Finance, Commercial Litigation.
- International Financial Law Review has recognized six Pillsbury practices and 17 of the firm’s lawyers as leading U.S. practitioners in the 2023 edition of the IFLR 1000, including named as a stand out firm in the areas of Project Development: Energy; Project Finance; M&A; Capital Markets: Debt; and Capital Markets: Equity.
- Pillsbury has received more than a dozen “Deal of the Year” awards for energy and project finance transactions since 2002, including projects in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
- The Legal 500 has ranked our Project Finance practice among the top in the United States since 2014.
- Chambers and Partners Global has ranked Pillsbury among the top firms for Project Finance since 2015.
- Chambers USA 2023 ranked Pillsbury as a leader in 51 practice areas across the country, with 96 Pillsbury lawyers earning 109 individual recognitions, including rankings in the categories of Construction, Energy, Environment, Finance and International Trade.