Emerging Business Tools
practice areas
honors + affiliations
Member, Oil, Gas, and Mineral Law Section and International Law Section, State Bar of Texas
Past President, Secretary, and Board Member, Association of International Petroleum Negotiators
Past Chairman, Oil and Gas Committee, Energy and Natural Resources Law Section, International Bar Association
Member, Houston Bar Association
Member, Houston Producers' Forum
Named "International Lawyer of the Year" for Oil and Gas by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers (2005 & 2008)
Named in Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Energy and Natural Resources Lawyers and Guide to the World's Leading Project Finance Lawyers
Listed, The Best Lawyers in America (2006–2011)
Listed as a leading Energy and Natural Resources Lawyer in Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers every year since 2000 and as a leading Energy and Natural Resources Lawyer and Projects Lawyer in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business every year since 2003
Recipient, Chambers USA's "Award for Excellence" for Work in the Oil and Gas Sector (2006)
Listed, "Texas Super Lawyer" (2004–2011) and "Top 100 Houston Super Lawyers" (2007), Law & Politics
Recognized as an Asialaw Leading Lawyer in Energy and Natural Resources by Asia Law and Practice (2007–2009)
Named as one of America's 500 Leading Lawyers by Lawdragon (2011)
bar admissions
- Texas
- Houston
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1000 Louisiana St., Suite 4000
Houston, TX 77002-5006
Phone: 713.890.5718
Fax: 713.890.5001
David F. Asmus is a partner in Morgan Lewis’s Business and Finance Practice and leader of the Energy Transactions Practice. Mr. Asmus focuses his practice on oil and gas development projects (including LNG and unconventional resource projects, FPSO and platform-based offshore developments, and integrated field development, pipeline, and processing projects), acquisitions and divestitures (including auction and negotiated sales and property exchanges), and energy-based financings (including project financings, reserve-based loans, and production payments).
Mr. Asmus has experience with the structuring, documentation, and negotiation of oil and gas transactions that range from host government arrangements, farm-ins, and acquisitions to shareholder agreements, operating agreements, and unitizations to EPC, production handling, transportation, and sales contracts and financing arrangements.
Prior to joining Morgan Lewis, Mr. Asmus was a senior partner in and leader of the global oil and gas practice of an international law firm. Before his legal career, he worked as a geophysicist for Pennzoil.
Mr. Asmus has served as the president, the secretary, and a member of the board of directors of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN), chaired the AIPN/ACCA committee that revised the Model Form International Operating Agreement in 1995, and co-chaired and served as lead drafter for the AIPN 2006 Model Form International Unitization and Unit Operating Agreement. He is also past chairman of the Oil and Gas Committee of the International Bar Association.
Mr. Asmus received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1985 and his B.S., magna cum laude and with distinction, in geology and geophysics from Yale University in 1981.
Mr. Asmus is admitted to practice in Texas.
Selected Representations
Note: This list includes engagements completed prior to joining Morgan Lewis.
LNG and Other Project Development
- Represented an energy company in the joint venture, marketing, and host government arrangements for the Tangguh LNG project.
- Represented an oil company in the development of the EG LNG project in Equatorial Guinea, including host government arrangements, drafting of the shareholders agreement, and coordination of an outside counsel team.
- Represented an oil company in the development of the PLNG project in Peru.
- Represented an LNG project company in connection with sales contract issues involving the Bontang LNG project.
- Represented an Australian company in the initial development work on a coal bed methane-based LNG project in Queensland, Australia.
- Represented an oil and gas company in the drafting and negotiation of EPC arrangements for offshore developments in Trinidad and Tobago.
- Represented a U.S. company in the Canyon Express deepwater pipeline system, the first project of its type in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Unitizations
- Represented a consortium of Japanese companies in the unitization and joint development of several fields in Papua New Guinea, the first unitization in Papua New Guinea, including the construction of an oil processing plant and pipeline.
- Represented an energy company in the unitization the Wiriagar Deep and Vorwata Fields, Indonesia.
- Represented an oil and gas company in the unitization of a field in Trinidad and Tobago.
- Represented an oil and gas company in the unitization of the Val d’Agri Field in Italy.
- Represented an independent UK company in the unitization of the Jubilee field, offshore Ghana, the first Ghanaian unitization.
- Represented a U.S. company in an offshore Campos Basin unitization project in Brazil.
Unconventional Resources
- Represented an Australian company in the $15.1 billion acquisition of Petrohawk.
- Represented the investor in a $950 million acquisition and joint venture of Marcellus shale assets.
- Represented the investor in a $2.25 billion acquisition and joint venture of Barnett shale assets.
- Represented a European company in a $1.3 billion acquisition of Haynesville shale assets and related midstream assets.
- Represented a European company in a multibillion-dollar bid for the Marcellus shale assets of a U.S. gas company.
- Represented an Australian company in the development of a coal bed methane project.
- Represented a U.S. company in the acquisition of an unconventional gas project onshore in China.
- Represented a European company in a joint venture for oil shale development in the western United States.
- Represented a Canadian company in connection with a heavy oil pilot project in Texas.
Acquisitions and Divestitures
- Represented a supermajor in a $1.9 billion divestiture of its upstream and midstream businesses in Colombia.
- Represented a power and energy company in the disposition of one of its subsidiaries through auctions of asset packages and subsidiaries totaling more than $13 billion.
- Represented an oil and gas company in a $3.5 billion purchase of the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve from the U.S. government, and provided advice on unitization in connection with the field.
- Represented an oil and gas company in a $1 billion, four-country property swap.
- Represented a private equity company in the acquisition of a gas gathering company and in subsequent work on the acquisition of additional gathering systems.
- Represented a major oil company in the sale of its Gulf of Mexico shelf properties.
- Represented an oil and gas company in the acquisitions and dispositions of interests in ammonia plants and provided advice regarding shareholding arrangements and ammonia sale arrangements in Trinidad and Tobago.
- Represented an oil and gas company in the acquisition of several blocks in Ecuador and in the negotiation of a crude oil sales contract. Also provided advice regarding the OCP pipeline project.
- Represented an independent crude oil and natural gas company in its acquisition of a Canadian independent’s interests, including two FPSOs, offshore Australia.
- Represented a major oil company in a like-kind exchange of U.S. onshore assets for deepwater offshore assets.
education
- Harvard Law School, 1985, J.D.
- Yale University, 1981, B.S., Magna Cum Laude, With Distinction