Biography
Chris Bennett is a partner in Weil’s Private Equity practice and is based in Houston. Chris advises public and private companies, private equity sponsors and other investors on a wide array of corporate transactions across the energy and infrastructure industries, with a focus on upstream and midstream oil and gas sectors. He counsels clients on high-profile mergers and acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and other strategic combinations relating to energy assets and businesses, and the development and negotiation of related partnership, operating, processing, and other services and commercial agreements, in addition to advising on broader corporate governance issues. He also advises on infrastructure projects and M&A adjacent to the energy industry and works with traditional energy companies and investors as they increasingly look to transition their business and reduce carbon emissions.
Experience*
- Antero Midstream LLC in its $70 million acquisition of certain gas gathering, compression, dehydration, measurement and appurtenant facilities in Doddridge and Harrison County, WV, from Mountaineer Midstream Company, LLC (a subsidiary of a subsidiary of Summit Midstream Partners, LP)
- IMTT Holdings LLC (a portfolio company of Riverstone Holdings LLC) in its sale of five bulk liquids storage terminals located in Alamogordo, NM, Bremen, GA, Macon, GA, Montgomery, AL and Moundville, AL to JET Infrastructure Holding IA LLC (a portfolio company of Instar Asset Management); and in the sale of its bulk liquids storage terminal located in Gretna, Louisiana, to BWC Terminals
- Bighorn (f/k/a Sable Permian Resources) in its announced sale of all of its assets to Earthstone Energy for $860 million in cash and stock consideration
- Angelo Gordon in out-of-court comprehensive restructuring of Abraxas Petroleum, which also included the sale of assets to Lime Rock Resources
- EQT Corporation in its acquisition of the upstream and midstream subsidiaries of Alta Resources Development, LLC for approximately $2.93 billion in cash and stock
- ArcLight Capital Partners in its acquisition from Murphy Oil Corporation and joint venture with Ridgewood Energy Corporation to co-own the King’s Quay floating production system in the Gulf of Mexico
- Solaris Water Midstream in connection with its acquisition of water gathering, disposal and recycling assets in west Texas and southeastern New Mexico from ConocoPhillips (as successor to Concho Resources) and simultaneous joint venture with ConocoPhillips focused on optimizing water logistics in the Northern Delaware basin
- EPIC Midstream in various corporate transactions and debt and equity financings in connection with its development of crude oil and NGL pipelines from the Delaware basin to Corpus Christi, Texas
- The subsidiary of a multinational integrated oil and gas company in its $545 million acquisition of deepwater Gulf of Mexico assets from Cobalt International Energy pursuant to bankruptcy court 363 proceedings
- Southwestern Energy in connection with its $1.86 billion sale of its Fayetteville Shale exploration and production and gathering businesses to Flywheel Energy
- Multiple private equity portfolio companies and private equity sponsors in connection with many upstream asset acquisitions and divestitures
Chris is ranked as an “Up and Coming” lawyer for Energy: Oil & Gas (Transactional) by Chambers Global and Chambers USA 2024, where clients note he “is very commercially minded.” Chris is also recommended for Energy Transactions: Oil & Gas by Legal 500 US and recognized as a “Texas Rising Star” by Super Lawyers 2016-2023.
Prior to joining Weil, Chris was a partner at another international law firm.
Chris received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Tulane University Law School and his B.A., cum laude, from Louisiana State University.
*Includes matters handled prior to joining Weil.