Carl von Merz

Carl is head of the firm’s US oil and gas practice. Carl has over 20 years of experience advising on large scale energy industry transactions. He focuses his practice principally on counseling private equity funds, entrepreneurs, management teams, and public and private companies on their equity investments, joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures in the energy and energy transition sectors.

Carl has deep experience spanning the energy industry, including the upstream oil and gas sector (onshore, offshore, conventional, and unconventional), midstream sector (natural gas, crude oil, liquids and other pipelines, processing facilities, and storage assets), and oilfield services. Carl has provided clients with critical guidance in their investments in the energy transition, including with respect to structuring joint ventures and carbon storage acquisitions for their carbon capture, use, and sequestration projects.

A fluent Spanish speaker, Carl has represented clients in cross-border transactions in Latin America. Earlier in his career, Carl was lead in-house M&A counsel for an international energy company with substantial US onshore and offshore oil and gas operations.

Experience prior to joining the firm includes:

Upstream

• Represented a private equity backed company in its acquisition of producing and nonproducing assets in the Bakken shale play from a publicly traded, Canadian E&P company.
• Represented a publicly traded strategic oil and gas company in its sale of upstream oil and gas assets in the Western Anadarko Basin and in the STACK/SCOOP Basin in Texas and Oklahoma for $612 million to private equity backed portfolio companies.
• Represented an upstream energy company backed by a family office in its acquisition of approximately 30,000 acres of oil and gas leasehold and fee interests in the Eagle Ford shale play from a private company and in related agreements for development of the assets.
• Represented Blue Ridge Mountain Resources in its sale to Eclipse Resources Corp., majority owned by EnCap Investments LP, for $378.88 million.
• Represented a privately held oil and gas company in its sell-down of a minority interest in Utica gas assets and a related joint venture with a private equity backed affiliate of a power company.
• Represented a private upstream oil and gas company backed by a family office in its acquisition of upstream oil and gas assets in the Permian basin.

• Represented a private equity backed upstream company in multiple acquisitions in the Permian basin totaling over $450 million.
• Represented a private equity backed minerals company in its $88 million acquisition of mineral and royalty interests from another private equity backed minerals company.
• Represented a family office owned oil and gas company in its $110 million divestiture of producing and nonproducing properties in the Permian Basin to a major energy company.
• Represented a publicly listed, international energy company in its $4.7 billion acquisition of a NASDAQ-listed oil and gas company operating principally in the Bakken shale play.
• Represented a publicly listed, international energy company in its $1.26 billion joint acquisition of Eagle Ford shale assets and a related joint venture with another international energy company.
• Represented a publicly listed, international energy company in multiple divestitures of non-core acreage in the Marcellus shale play in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including:
  
  • a divestiture, along with its joint venture partner, of $394 million of Marcellus shale gas assets to Southwestern Energy;
  • a divestiture, along with its joint venture partner, of $90 million joint divestiture of Marcellus shale gas assets to a publicly-traded E&P company;
  • a divestiture, along with its joint venture partner, of $150 million joint divestiture of Marcellus shale gas assets to a publicly-traded E&P company;
  • a divestiture, along with its joint venture partner, of $113 million joint divestiture of Marcellus shale gas assets to a publicly-traded E&P company; and
  • a divestiture, along with its joint venture partner, of $93 million joint divestiture of Marcellus shale gas assets to a publicly traded E&P company.
• Represented a publicly listed, international energy company in its series of related acquisitions and joint ventures with a private exploration and production company covering over 400,000 acres of exploration properties in various basins in the US.

Midstream

• Represented Bayou Midstream, LLC in its acquisition of Bakken Shale midstream assets from affiliates of NorthStar Midstream.
• Represented Ironwood Midstream Energy Partners II, LLC in the acquisition of midstream assets in South Texas.
• Represented Ironwood Midstream Energy Partners II, LLC in its merger with Nuevo Midstream Dos (Nuevo), pursuant to which Ironwood assumed management of approximately 100 miles of crude oil gathering pipeline and 300,000 barrels of crude oil storage and a 26-mile intermediate crude oil pipeline.
• Represented a private equity backed midstream company in its joint venture with an upstream company for the development of a gas gathering system in the Marcellus shale.
• Represented a private equity backed midstream company in the renegotiation of a gas gathering agreement and related acreage dedication in a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceeding for an anchor shipper.

Energy Transition

• Represented a publicly traded energy company in structuring its acquisitions of CO2 storage space (or “pore space”) in the US, including with respect to the laws relating to ownership of pore space in the US and the types of interests to be acquired.
• Represented a publicly traded energy company in its proposed acquisition of subsurface storage space from a Texas landowner.
• Represented a UK-based carbon capture and sequestration company backed by private capital in its joint venture with a publicly traded US-based company to develop a carbon capture storage project in Louisiana.
• Represented a private developer in its proposed $60 million acquisition of natural gas wells, a related natural gas processing plant, and related CO2 infrastructure in Wyoming for a planned carbon capture, utilization, and storage project.
• Represented a supermajor in its acquisition of an operating California wind project.
• Represented a private equity fund in its $25 million debt and equity investment in an early stage biofuels/renewable gas company.

Energy Private Equity

• Represented the management team of Wellspring Energy Resources, LLC in the formation of Wellspring Energy Resources and its equity commitment from certain funds managed by NGP to pursue non-operated oil and gas working interests, operated oil and gas development financings, structured transactions, and other special situations in North America.
• Represented the management of a terminals company in its proposed equity commitment from a UK-based new energies fund and in its related acquisition and operational agreements for the acquisition and development of terminals in South Texas.
• Represented a private equity fund in connection with (i) the out-of-court restructuring of the outstanding indebtedness of a private equity-backed Permian Basin exploration and production company and (ii) its acquisition of a minority equity interest in the company.
• Represented the management team of Luxe Minerals in its $254 million equity commitment from funds managed by NGP.
• Represented the management team of Luxe Energy in its $524 million equity commitment from a major energy private equity fund.
• Represented the management team of a private midstream company in its $60 million equity commitment from a major energy infrastructure fund.
• Represented a private equity fund in its formation of a portfolio company to pursue oil and gas investments in the Bakken shale play in North Dakota.
• Represented a private equity fund in its investment in its formation of a portfolio company to pursue midstream investments in the Bakken shale play in North Dakota.
• Represented a private equity fund in its investment in an oil and gas company focused on investing in oil and gas resources in Colombia.
• Represented a private equity fund in its investment in a Colombian coal company.

• Texas Bar Association
• Texas Bar Foundation
• Austin Bar Foundation