About

The in-house legal team of OPWP has four lawyers supporting all of the company’s water and power projects in Oman, whether such projects are under development, implementation or in the operational stage. Whilst OPWP has developed a large number of high value projects in recent times, the most significant transactions have been the ones which are the first of their kind in Oman including the development of the first 500 MW Solar IPP in Oman, the 1200MW Clean Coal IPP and the electricity Spot Market which is intended to go live in 2020. There has been a recent change in the composition of the in-house legal team. The previous general counsel Andrew Rae has now been appointed as the Chief Operating Officer of OPWP, showing the immense talent the internal legal department develops. Ahmed Al Abri, an Omani lawyer with over 10 years’ experience has taken over the role of acting general counsel since January 2018. Now the in-house legal team is made up entirely of Omani lawyers who have experience in a range of matters including litigation and dispute resolution, corporate and commercial, project financing and power and water projects.

The team also has experience with claims management and exercise commercially oriented thinking when dealing with such claims, in order to ensure that foreign developers are treated fairly and in accordance with the terms of the agreements and Oman law. Recently, the legal team has been reviewing the laws of Oman in order to convince certain ministries, including the Ministry of Legal Affairs, it is no longer required to review the usufruct agreements of power and water projects which has significantly minimised the development time of OPWP’s projects. OPWP now understands that this approach is being implemented in other industries in the country. In addition, the team has worked on removing the requirement of government ratification on OPWP’s project agreements which has also significantly minimised the project’s timeline.

Every team member has their strengths and the in-house legal team work well together to support OPWP’s business objectives. In particular, Ahmed Al Abri, acting general counsel, has excelled since taking on the new position. One of his great achievements is standardising the form of water and project agreements and negotiating standard terms across government ministries to minimise the delays experienced with obtaining third-party stakeholder approvals on OPWP project agreements. Leyan Al Mawali, legal counsel, plays a vital role in claims review and power as well as water purchase agreements. Yousuf Al Busaidi, legal counsel and company secretary, has significantly contributed to strengthening the governance structure of the company, and the Nama Group as a whole.

Al Abri identified that OPWP’s in-house legal team ‘is well recognised and respected by the power and water sector companies in Oman, international developers and lenders. Other government entities and companies rely on OPWP’s legal team experience and knowledge in project development and has been recently supporting various government and semi-government entities in implementing public and private Partnership schemes’.