Randel Young
Randel R. Young is a Senior Consultant at Charles River Associates (CRA), where he focuses on the energy sector. Randel is a long-time member of Association of International Energy Negotiators having joined the organization in the early days of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators in 1980s. He worked on the committee that produced the original model contract JOA in 1990 and has remained active over the years including as a member of the Corporate Affairs Committee for the last two years.
Randel has 45 years’ experience in the energy sector as a project transaction lawyer, M&A lawyer, regional general counsel, senior business executive, and commercial energy advisor. He has advised on U.S. and cross-border M&A transactions, emerging market privatizations, project development and finance transactions, joint bidding arrangements, joint investment and ownership structures, and other complex business arrangements in the electric power (generation, transmission and distribution sectors), oil and natural gas (upstream, midstream, downstream sectors), LNG, hydrogen, low-carbon fuels and petrochemicals and other products.
Randel has advised sellers, purchasers, developers, lenders, off-takers, owners and other energy stakeholders in the structuring, negotiation, acquisition, development, procurement, construction, operation, financing and disposition of energy facilities and other business assets and platforms across the energy sector. He has been involved in major energy projects and engagements in the United States, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, and Central and Southeast Asia.
Prior to joining CRA as a senior commercial consultant in 2021 upon his retirement from over 40 years of law practice, Randel was a partner at the global law firm of K&L Gates, where, in addition to maintaining his U.S and global energy project and transaction practice, he served in senior management, including as oil and gas practice group coordinator, an energy, infrastructure, and resources practice area leader, and managing partner of the Houston office. In these leadership roles, he coordinated the practices of other lawyers with a focus on U.S. and global energy, infrastructure and resource projects and disputes. Randel served on K&L Gates’s global management committee and global advisory council.
From 1996 to 2001, Randel held senior management and legal positions at Enron Corporation and its subsidiaries, including as vice president and general counsel for Enron International and Enron South America, where he served on Enron’s regional executive and structuring and risk committees for the Southern Cone of South America. Randel’s executive and legal responsibilities included managing, evaluating and developing risk identification and mitigation plans for cross-border investment risks in connection with the acquisition, development, construction and operation of Enron’s integrated energy asset and business platform across the Southern Cone. He structured, negotiated and advised on, and worked on due diligence and evaluation teams for energy privatization, M&A, development and finance transactions and other commercial activities relating to Enron’s natural gas facilities, infrastructure and operations (transmission, distribution, processing and treatment), power facilities, infrastructure and operation (generation, transmission and distribution), and gas and power marketing and trading activities, in Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia, Peru and Chile.
Randel lectures at Tulane Law School, where he has taught advanced law classes on structuring, development and execution of large-scale energy and resources projects. Since 2021, Randel has served as a distinguished research fellow and advisory director at the Tulane Center for Energy Law. He also serves on the Advisory Board of Stirling Infrastructure Partners, an investment bank based in London.
Randel has been listed in The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers in three categories: M&A, Oil & Gas and Project Finance, and recognized for his work in two jurisdictions: Texas and the United Arab Emirates. Among other professional recognitions, in 2007, Randel was named one of five “Go-To Lawyers” in International Law by Texas Lawyer magazine.
Randel received his BA (summa cum laude, 1977) and his JD (cum laude, 1980) from the University of Houston. He also holds a Certificate in Advanced Arbitration Skills (Domestic and International) from the A. A. White Dispute Resolution Center in Houston.
Randel’s consulting expertise and expert testimony work are primarily focused on (i) energy projects and energy matters, (ii) energy and natural resource privatization, M&A and public and private bid transactions; (iii) joint ventures, joint development and joint operations (iv) commercial risk analysis and assessments on energy investments and strategies, (v) renewable energy projects, finance and economics, and (vi) gas, power, hydrogen and other energy commodity origination, trading and commercialization.
Randel has a global advisory practice, but his primary regional focus is currently on energy projects, developments and commercial activities in the United States and Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean Basin, the Middle East and North Africa and South Asia. He has also worked extensively in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
Randel is licensed to practice law in Texas (1980). He is also a member of several professional associations focused on energy and natural resource projects and disputes, including the International Bar Association, the Institute for Transnational Arbitration and the Association of International Energy Negotiators.
Randel lives in Houston, Texas. He is based as a consultant in CRA’s headquarters in Boston but also works regularly in CRA’s Houston and London offices.