Editor’s note: Tatiana Munro Cabezas moved on from her position in July 2022.

Focus on the role of the corporate legal manager in a state-owned oil and gas company

Public knowledge is that the industry in which we participate was dramatically impacted and challenged by the pandemic. Large companies generated millions of dollars in losses compared to the profits reported in the previous years. They were required to adapt quickly to changes and the uncertainty of the market, and ENAP was not exempt from this.

We are today adopting the same flexibility and promptness to work on the development of public policies that give ENAP a relevant role in the initiative proposed by the Chilean government, which aim to promote new energy project with emphasis on the development of clean and sustainable energy, which will also enable the country to achieve a fair energy transition.

In this way, we are developing a pilot project to distribute liquefied petroleum gas that will enable us to strengthen the role of providing the energy solutions that citizens require.

ENAP, as a state-owned company, has a public-private mix of applicable regulations, which makes the legal challenges it faces different from those of a typical oil and gas company. It is subject to the control of the Comptroller General of the Republic office, which oversees the proper use of public resources, notwithstanding the fact that it must be competitive in a market with other private actors. It is also a company with a high level of unionisation. Therefore, legal solutions must be tailor-made, complying with the applicable regulations and ensuring the integration of the viewpoint of the different stakeholders.

At the same time, ENAP’s legal management has continued with its role of anticipating contingencies and new regulations in an industry as challenging and constantly changing as ours. Therefore, the role of the corporate legal manager is crucial, as it requires a cross-cutting and strategic view of the different areas of law, deep knowledge of the business and its particularities, as well as the ability to identify reputational and operational risks, with high capacity to adapt to change to lead teams that provide support in all the company’s legal matters.