Contract Drafting, Review & Negotiation Skills

Course Overview

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the structure, purpose, and key components of commercial contracts used across the oil and gas industry.
• Develop clear and commercially practical contractual clauses covering scope, obligations, performance, payment, risk, and remedies.
• Evaluate contractual language to identify ambiguity, inconsistencies, gaps, excessive obligations, and potential sources of legal or commercial exposure.
• Apply systematic contract review techniques to assess clauses from legal, commercial, financial, technical, and operational perspectives.
• Design effective risk allocation provisions addressing liability, indemnity, warranties, insurance, force majeure, and termination.
• Improve the drafting of provisions governing variations, changes, extensions, delays, performance requirements, and contractor responsibilities.
• Assess the commercial implications of contractual terms before entering negotiations or approving significant contractual commitments.
• Develop structured negotiation strategies based on organizational priorities, risk tolerance, commercial objectives, and contractual interests.
• Apply effective negotiation techniques to manage objections, competing positions, concessions, deadlines, and difficult contractual discussions.
• Evaluate governing law, jurisdiction, dispute resolution, confidentiality, intellectual property, and other critical provisions in international oil and gas contracts.
• Strengthen coordination between legal, contracts, commercial, procurement, project, engineering, finance, and operations teams during contract development and negotiation.
• Prepare a practical contract drafting, review, and negotiation framework suitable for high-value oil and gas agreements.

Who Should Attend

Learning Outcomes

• Explain the structure and commercial purpose of key provisions used in oil and gas contracts.
• Draft clear contractual provisions that accurately reflect agreed commercial and operational requirements.
• Conduct systematic reviews of contracts and identify clauses that require clarification, amendment, negotiation, or escalation.
• Identify legal, commercial, financial, technical, and operational risks arising from contractual language.
• Assess the implications of liability, indemnity, warranty, insurance, penalty, and limitation-of-liability provisions.
• Review scope of work, deliverables, payment terms, performance requirements, and change mechanisms for consistency and completeness.
• Evaluate force majeure, suspension, termination, governing law, jurisdiction, and dispute resolution provisions.
• Develop contract negotiation plans that define objectives, priorities, fallback positions, and acceptable concessions.
• Apply professional negotiation techniques when dealing with contractors, suppliers, operators, joint-venture partners, and other stakeholders.
• Prepare structured responses to proposed contractual amendments and unfavorable counterparty positions.
• Improve coordination between legal, commercial, procurement, project, engineering, finance, and operations functions during contract negotiations.
• Produce a practical contract drafting, review, and negotiation checklist applicable to oil and gas agreements.

Course Outline

Upcoming Dates