About

KAPL is a wholly owned subsidiary of
KUFPEC, an international oil company engaged in the exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas outside of Kuwait and active in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. Gavan Sproule commenced his role as senior legal counsel and company secretary at KAPL in 2015. Prior to KAPL he spent nearly eight years with Shell in Australia and overseas. With an extensive background in oil and gas, he has had direct involvement in three of the largest LNG projects in Australia. During his time at Shell, Sproule was involved in a range of important deals, including finalising the joint operating agreements for the Gorgon LNG Project after more than two years of negotiation, unitising the Wheatstone and Iago fields (leading to Shell’s entry into the Wheatstone LNG Project) as well as providing sole legal support to the Prelude FLNG Project over four years, working across six work streams in multiple locations. Recently Sproule has worked on KAPL’s divestment of its legacy interest in the
Harriet Joint Venture to Quadrant Energy (now Santos) which involved a complex web of agreements stretching back over
30 years and reaching a commercial resolution on significant abandonment liabilities. He also highlight his achievement
in building the contractual framework for KAPL Australia’s LNG, condensate and domestic gas marketing activities from the ground-up, and closing multiple LNG and domestic gas sale agreements before first production from the Wheatstone LNG Project. From the perspective of an oil and gas lawyer, Sproule feels the changing dynamics of the global energy market will continue to have a significant impact on his career, for example, ‘the rapid development of shale oil in the US and abundance of natural gas leading to the export of LNG from the US for the first time; the fourfold increase in LNG production by Australia and its emergence as one of the world’s top LNG exporters; the continued evolution of the global LNG market with more diverse demand and supply; and the development of LNG trading hubs and transparent market pricing’. More generally, ‘corporate governance requirements and regulation have increased exponentially in Australia and will continue to do so. In-house lawyers need a much greater depth of knowledge across a wide range of areas in addition to their core focus, and formal corporate governance qualifications are almost a “must have” at more senior levels. This, in combination with the increased expectations placed on in-house legal functions, means the role of an in-house lawyer as a “business partner” will continue to grow (as well as evolve) and require a fine balance between serving the business, as client, while ensuring the independence necessary in a highly regulated environment’, he adds. Talking about the support needed to help convert ‘rising stars’ into in-house legal industry leaders, Sproule comments: ‘For me the most important thing is support from the business to grow and develop outside the core legal remit – building relationships with, and learning from, senior management in finance, engineering and corporate, as well as undertaking appropriate post-graduate courses. Within the legal fold I have had the benefit of working with some amazing senior lawyers, both in-house and externally, in my career and having senior colleagues available as a sounding-board is invaluable as part of taking the ‘next step’, especially in an in-house environment where you are relying on your own expertise and judgment much of the time’.