Richard Phelan is a UK qualified solicitor admitted in 1987 who has worked in the UK car industry, chemical industry and for the last twenty plus years, in the oil and gas industry. During his career he has worked in the UK, United States of America, Kazakhstan, Australia and Oman. In the UK between 1994 and 1997 he was the Head of Legal and Company secretary for Gulf Oil (Great Britain) Limited and in Kazakhstan between 1998 and 2002 he was the Deputy Legal Manager for the Tengizchevroil  joint venture.

In 2003 he was asked to be one of the founding members of Chevron’s Major Capital Projects legal practice group. Between 2003 and 2006 he worked on a number of significant major capital projects for Chevron in various locations. In 2006 he was assigned as the chief construction lawyer for the Chevron operated Gorgon LNG project in Western Australia. This was the largest ever single resource project in Australia’s history.

From 2006 to 2015 he drafted and negotiated many of the major construction contracts for the Gorgon Project, both upstream and downstream, and managed a team of lawyers supporting the project. He has extensive experience as a commercial and construction lawyer in a number of practice areas.

In January 2016 he joined Oman Gas Company SAOC (now known as OQ Gas Networks SAOC) as its Managing Counsel and since November 2018 has been its Legal Director with responsibility for all legal aspects of the company’s business.

Richard has a degree in Law from Leeds University.

Farah Mudaffer is Legal Counsel at Shell and is based in Dubai advising the Global LNG business.  Prior to working in this business, Farah advised on various upstream matters in the MENA region. Farah qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales at Clyde & Co LLP specialising in transactional shipping.  After several years in private practice she made the transition in-house as Legal Counsel to the offshore drilling contractor, Shelf Drilling, advising on project finance, joint ventures and ship sale and purchase matters.

Farah holds a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia in Canada and an LLB from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom.

Richard Devine has been based in the UAE since 2005. During that time, he has worked on upstream, midstream and downstream projects in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Richard represents major international oil companies, national oil companies, independent oil companies and oilfield service companies.   Prior to co-founding Devine & Severova, Richard was a partner at an international law firm. Richard qualified as a solicitor in England & Wales in 2001.