Overview
Parker A. Lee advises companies and investors in evaluating and executing transactions and commercial contracts in the energy and infrastructure industries. He represents clients in various domestic and international oil & gas, renewable fuels, power, water, petrochemical and infrastructure M&A, project development and joint venture transactions.
Parker works with clients on complex commercial contracts, including joint operating, joint development, gathering, processing, transportation, terminaling, oil and gas purchase, offtake, master services, operation and maintenance (O&M) and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) agreements.
Parker also maintains an active pro bono practice. He previously served as corporate counsel for a Latin America-focused private equity fund specializing in microfinance loans to coffee farming cooperatives in Mexico and Peru.
While in law school, Parker served as a staff editor and an external affairs director for the SMU Science and Technology Law Review.
Results
- Represented a public oil and gas company focused on the midstream and downstream sectors in its $265 million acquisition of substantially all of a Sacramento, California based petroleum distribution company focused on a wide array of petroleum products, including gasoline, low sulfur diesel fuel and renewable diesel or biodiesel.
- Represented Phalanx Impact Partners LLC in forming and establishing a US joint venture company with Vikram Solar and Das & Co. called VSK Energy LLC. The new company will invest up to $1.5 billion to develop a vertically integrated solar manufacturing operation in the United States, reducing US dependence on foreign suppliers who currently dominate the solar market.
- Represented Crossbridge Energy Partners in its negotiation and execution of a professional services agreement with Bakersfield Renewable Fuels, LLC, a portfolio company owned by Global Clean Energy for services in support of the completion, commission and startup of the Bakersfield Renewable Fuels Project, which modifies and converts a dormant 500+ acre crude oil refinery into a renewable fuels refinery with the capacity to produce 210 million gallons of renewable diesel per year. The facility is expected to be vertically integrated to produce renewable diesel from various feedstocks, including Global Clean Energy’s patented proprietary fallow land crop varieties of camelina, as well as various non-petroleum renewable feedstocks, such as used cooking oil, soybean oil, distillers’ corn oil, and others.
- Represented Trio Petroleum Corp., an oil and gas exploration and development company focused on strategic, high-growth energy projects in California, in its $6 million initial public offering (IPO) of 2,000,000 shares of its common stock at a price of $3.00 per share.
- Represented Aiga Capital Partners LLC, an investor focused on investments in North America-based companies developing sustainable infrastructure assets, as lender, in the negotiation and documentation of a $13.3 million senior secured credit facility provided to Nexus Renewables Inc., a developer of renewable energy infrastructure projects with a focus on energy storage, in connection with the construction of a 10 MWdc / 40MWh battery storage project to be developed and constructed in Fairfield, California.
- Represented Arbor Renewables LLC as counsel in the purchase of assets from Arbor Chemicals, LLC, a portfolio company of Junction Capital Partners, that are used in the marketing and producing by tolling of crude tall oil and certain associated derivatives in various locations throughout the United States.
- Represented Recapture in its completion of the Terra Nova 1 project, part of Recapture’s 3-year $100 million project development strategy in Northern Argentina. The Terra Nova 1 Project is a utility-scale bio-enhanced afforestation carbon project development. This project represents a breakthrough in carbon capture and delivers high-impact, scalable and nature-based carbon removal.
- Represented Nel Hydrogen US, a subsidiary of Norwegian company Nel ASA, as US counsel in its entrance into a joint development agreement with General Motors to help accelerate industrialization of Nel’s proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer platform and collectively enable production of more cost competitive sources of renewable hydrogen.
- Represented an international infrastructure fund in its $252 million acquisition from a publicly traded international infrastructure fund and asset manager of 50% of the membership interests of a holding company that owns hydroelectric businesses and a transmission business located in North Carolina and Tennessee.
- Represented Beam Suntory Inc. in the execution of a Renewable Energy Services Agreement with 3Rivers Energy Partners for the development of a renewable natural gas anaerobic digestion facility adjacent to the Jim Beam distillery in Boston, Kentucky in a projected $400 million expansion. The biogas development project will use still from the whiskey distillery process as feedstock for the production of renewable natural gas, which will then power the expanded distillery and assist Beam Suntory in achieving its goal to cut its company wide greenhouse gas emission and water usage in half by 2030.
- Represented Crossbridge Energy Partners in its negotiation and execution of a professional services agreement with Strategic Biofuels and Louisiana Green Fuels, LLC for early-stage executive management, operations and maintenance services at a forestry waste to renewable diesel refinery and related carbon capture facility in Caldwell Parish, Louisiana
- Represented Lafayette Energy Corp, a newly formed private equity portfolio company, in its acquisition of a package of over 100 oil and gas leases in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, from a private oil and gas minerals company for an undisclosed combination of cash and stock
- Represented TWTG, an industrial internet of things products and service provider focused on the oil and gas industry, in its formation of TWTG US LLC, a new subsidiary focused on the US energy market
- Represented Recapture, a developer of carbon capture projects through reforestation, in the development of its pilot project in Argentina and establishment of its related US holding company
- Represented Irradiant Partners, LP, an investment manager focused on liquid credit and renewable private equity and credit, in the offering of $100 million in convertible debt capital to Bioenergy Development Group Holdco, LLC, a developer of renewable natural gas from anaerobic digestion
- Represented Trio Petroleum Corp, a newly formed private equity portfolio company, in its acquisition of undeveloped oil and gas assets in the Monterey Basin in California from a private exploration and production company for an undisclosed combination of cash and stock
- Advised Align Renewable Natural Gas, a joint venture between Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods, on RNG supply and offtake agreements for its RNG production facility in Clinton, North Carolina*
- Advised a public, mid-Atlantic based energy company on its commercial agreements related to development of compressed natural gas and related green energy attributes (RINs)*
- Advised the aviation-focused division of a major, integrated global oil and gas company on its $30 million joint venture and related commercial agreements with a bioenergy development company to develop sustainable aviation fuel*
- Represented Royal Vopak and BlackRock’s Global Energy & Power Infrastructure Fund in the formation of a joint venture, Vopak Industrial Infrastructure Americas, LLC, and then in VIIA’s subsequent purchase of three of The Dow Chemical Company’s chemical storage terminals on the US Gulf Coast for $620 million*
- Represented Ridgemont Equity Partners in its joint venture investment with Denham Capital Management and the Ontario Power Generation Inc. Pension Plan to back White Water Midstream, MPLX LP and West Texas Gas, Inc. to provide natural gas liquids (NGLs) takeaway capacity from MPLX and WTG gas processing plants in the Permian Basin to the NGL fractionation hub in Sweeny, TX*
- Represented Evolve Transition Infrastructure LP in its sale of wellbores and other associated assets located in Gonzales, DeWitt, Dimmit and Zavala Counties in South Texas*
- Represented Stakeholder Midstream in its acquisition of certain midstream gas gathering and processing assets in Yoakum County, Texas from Santa Fe Midstream*
- Represented Stakeholder Midstream in its acquisition of a crude oil gathering system and gas gathering pipeline in Yoakum County, Texas from Walsh Petroleum, Inc. and Burk Royalty Co. Ltd.*
- Represented the downstream business unit of a major global integrated oil company in the structuring of and entering into an acquisition financing and related jet fuel supply agreement with an airport operator at the Vancouver International Airport*
- Represented client in the acquisition of a natural gas and liquids gathering and transportation business in North Texas through the acquisition of the equity interests of the seller’s subsidiaries holding these assets*
- Served as project company counsel for a joint venture with Petroamazonas (a state-owned oil and gas company in Ecuador) and various power project developers and product suppliers for the development of three power plants in Ecuador*
- Represented a global investment bank’s private equity arm in a preferred debt and warrant investment of $150 million (with the ability to invest up to $320 million over the term of the investment) alongside an infrastructure focused private equity firm in a holding company to acquire existing regulated water and wastewater treatment facilities and for future similar acquisitions*
- Represented a private equity firm/family office fund in the development of its form documentation for the divestiture of mineral and royalty interests, and advised on various of this fund’s dispositions of mineral and royalty interests in the Permian Basin, the Bakken and the Powder River Basin*
- Represented clients DKRW Energy Partners LLC and Sculptor Domestic Partners, L.P. in certain transactions related to the recapitalization and sale of their respective investment in Mexico Pacific Limited, the owner of an LNG export facility in Puerto Libertad, Mexico, with an energy and infrastructure private equity firm as the buyer and joint venture partner*
- Represented a large independent exploration and production company in the conveyance of a water gathering system, water treatment facilities and fresh water wells in the Permian Basin to its midstream affiliates and the drafting and negotiation of the related produced water gathering agreement and water distribution services agreement*
- Represented SH 130 Holdings LLC, the project company for a toll road in Central Texas, in connection with its corporate documents and concession agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation*
- Represented a power project developer in its development and financing of two power generation plants in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Córdoba, Argentina, and related negotiation of power purchase agreements with CAMMESA (the Argentine administrator of the wholesale electricity market)*
- Represented a multilateral development bank in connection with a bankability review and analysis of commercial contracts of SIEPAC, an interconnection of power grids of six Central American countries*
- Represented ProPetro Holding Corp. in connection with its $400 million acquisition of the pressure pumping assets of, and the entrance into a long-term services agreement with, Pioneer Natural Resources Company*
- Served as counsel to The San Jose Water Company on its bid to acquire an interest in the project company, and negotiate a long-term operation and maintenance agreement with the project company, for the Rio Vista Pipeline Project, a 147-mile water pipeline project being procured by the San Antonio Water System*
- Served as lead counsel for a major global energy company in an extensive internal review and summary of all project documents and commercial agreements relating to the company’s entire wind energy project portfolio in the United States, including wind energy projects in Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Texas*
- Represented the special committee of DCP Midstream, LP in its securing of an option to acquire up to a 30 percent ownership interest (representing a potential capital investment of approximately $400 million) in two 150,000 bpd natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionators to be constructed within Phillips 66’s Sweeney Hub in Old Ocean, Texas*
- Represented the world’s largest oil trading company in its $600 million acquisition of the global oil liquids business of a global supply chain manager of energy, power and gas products*
- Represented a publicly traded midstream master limited partnership in the negotiation and execution of an amended and restated gas gathering agreement for the gathering and processing of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale formations with a private oil and gas exploration and production company*
- Represented a private midstream energy company in the sale of a natural gas pipeline, associated facilities and related real property interests in West Virginia to a private oil and gas exploration and production company*
- Represented a private midstream energy company in the negotiation and execution of a gas gathering agreement for the gathering and processing of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation with a publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production company*
- Represented Enterprise Products Partners L.P. in its purchase of the midstream business and assets of Azure Midstream Partners, L.P. and its operating subsidiaries in East Texas and North Louisiana*
- Represented Tokyo Gas America Ltd. in its 30% strategic equity investment into Castleton Resources LLC, a subsidiary of Castleton Commodities International LLC which owns upstream and midstream assets in East Texas and Louisiana*
- Represented a power project developer in the $20 million sale to an energy and infrastructure focused hedge fund of a project company owning a combined-cycle natural gas-fired generation facility located in Pennsylvania*
- Represented a newly formed private equity firm in its initial acquisition; a purchase of the equity interests of a transmix refinery in Indiana and a related financing through a Supply and Offtake Agreement*
- Represented an independent oil and gas company in its $130 million acquisition of an overriding royalty interest in West Texas acreage*
- Represented Sanchez Energy Corp. in the $44 million sale of its 50% interest in a joint-venture pipeline company to Sanchez Production Partners LP*
- Represented a G2X Energy in its $680 million joint-venture investment with OCI into a greenfield methanol production facility in Beaumont, Texas*
- Represented a major global energy company in its sale of a majority ownership stake in a natural gas processing plant in Mississippi*
- Completed a six-month in-house secondment, resident in the company’s Cairo, Egypt and Amsterdam, The Netherlands offices, with an Egyptian holding company, managing divestitures of portfolio companies in Cambodia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Malta and the British Virgin Islands*
- Represented a public French seismic and geophysical technology company in its acquisition of US and Canadian seismic data and related assets from a private equity backed portfolio company*
- Represented EP Energy in the $25 million sale of its two primary onshore blocks in Egypt’s Western Desert*
- Represented EP Energy in its $800 million divestiture of US domestic oil and gas producing assets from various basins*
- Represented EP Energy in its $220 million divestiture of US domestic oil and gas producing assets in the Arkoma region*
- Represented EP Energy in its $100 million divestiture of offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and gas producing assets*
- Represented a private equity backed portfolio company in a $50 million acquisition of oil & gas assets in northeast Texas*
- Represented Memorial Production Partners LP in its $170 million initial public offering*
*Matter handled prior to joining McDermott.
Recognitions
- Chambers USA, Energy: Oil & Gas (Transactional)-USA-Nationwide, Up and Coming, 2023
- The Legal 500 US, Energy Transactions: Oil and Gas, Next Generation Partner, 2023
- The Legal 500 US, Mergers & Acquisitions, 2015
Community
- Institute for Energy Law, member
- Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, member
- Texas Exes
- New York Chapter, member
- Westchester County/Fairfield County Chapter, lead representative
Credentials
Education
Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, JD, cum laude, 2010
The University of Texas, BBA and BA, 2006
Admissions
New York
Texas
Languages
English
French
Spanish