Joint Operating Agreements:A Practical Guide, Second Edition

The joint operating agreement (JOA) is one of the cornerstone contracts in the petroleum projects world and is often the starting point for further essential agreements relating to natural gas and crude oil processing, sales and transportation. The JOA enables long-term collaborative developments to be undertaken between groups of companies which have come together (often from diverse legal, commercial, cultural and political backgrounds) to share the high costs and risks which are inevitable in major petroleum exploration and production projects. It establishes common operational standards for application to developed jurisdictions and to emerging markets.

This new second edition provides a pragmatic examination of the provisions of a typical JOA in the order that they appear, with a particular focus on the critical issues of scope, the operator’s role, joint and exclusive operations, default, transfers and decommissioning. There is also practical analysis of the key issues which apply to the operation of any JOA and the positions which are taken in the various leading industry model form contracts. The perspectives of the operator and non-operator are addressed, along with a consideration of the domestic and international standards which will apply to a petroleum project.

The new edition highlights changes in the JOA world since the first edition, including the consequences of the Macondo incident, the proposed new JOA revision from the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) and the role of the JOA in the growth of unconventionals development.

Author Peter Roberts is a partner at international law firm Ashurst LLP and former general counsel of Centrica Energy. He is editor of the Journal of World Energy Law & Business, past chairman of the International Bar Association Oil and Gas Committee, a member of the AIPN and the Society of Petroleum Engineers and an occasional lecturer at Dundee University. He is also the author of Gas Sales and Transportation Agreements: Principles and Practices.

Joint Operating Agreements: A Practical Guide, Second Edition is an essential addition to the library of any lawyers, commercial managers, advisers, engineers or financiers who are engaged in the development of petroleum exploration and production projects worldwide