About John Hedge
John Hedge is a partner specialising in mergers, acquisition, joint ventures and other commercial arrangements in the mining and oil and gas sectors. His core practice involves advising on and negotiating asset and share acquisition and divestments, farm-ins, joint ventures, rail, port and pipeline infrastructure arrangements and advising on related access and economic regulation regimes.
John is recognized as a leading Queensland energy and resources lawyer in Doyle's Guide to the Australian Legal Profession and his expertise on competition and infrastructure access matters has led to previous recognition in Chambers Asia-Pacific.
Examples of John's mergers and acquisitions experience includes:
- Evolution Mining – on the $1 billion acquisition of the Ernest Henry copper gold mine from Glencore and sale of its Mt Carlton gold mine to Navarre Minerals
- Oil Search – on the $21 billion merger by scheme of arrangement with Santos Limited
- Senex Energy – on the sale of its entire Cooper Basin oil and gas portfolio to Beach Energy and acquisition of coal seam gas tenure from Australia Pacific LNG
- EIG – on the proposed US$1.58 billion acquisition of 10% of Australian Pacific LNG from Origin Energy
- Central Petroleum – on the sell down of 50% of its interests in its Northern Territory on-shore oil and gas production fields to New Zealand Oil and Gas and Cue Energy Resources (and previous acquisitions of 50% of the Mereenie field from Santos and of the Palm Valley and Dingo fields from Magellan) and joint venture with Incitec Pivot for the Range coal seam gas project
- Exxon Mobil – on the sale of its interest in Rundle oil shale joint venture to QER
- Rio Tinto – on the sale by Rio Tinto of its portfolio of coal projects, including:
- US$1.015 billion sale of Clermont to Glencore/Sumitomo
- US$1.7 billion sale of Hail Creek and Valeria to Glencore
- US$2.25 billion sale of Kestrel to EMR Capital / Adaro consortium
- Rio Tinto – on other significant strategic transactions including:
- successful defence of the US$107 billion BHP Billiton takeover offer
- proposed US$20 billion strategic alliance with Chinalco
- proposed US$100 billion Western Australian iron ore production joint venture with BHP
- takeover of Alcan Inc
- First Reserve – on sales of its interests in AMCI's Australian coal assets, the Belvedere coal joint venture, the Australian Premium Iron joint venture and Whitehaven Coal Mining Limited, and acquisition of its interest in Calibre Group and subsequent IPO
- JERA – on Australian aspects of the acquisition of EDF's coal business
- Nordzucker AG – on the takeover of Mackay Sugar
- Queensland Sugar – on the investment in Australian Cane Farms Limited
John has also undertaken significant work with:
- coal and other bulk minerals producers on rail haulage, rail access, port access and related capacity trading arrangements (Yancoal, Glencore, Rio Tinto, Peabody Energy, Pembroke, Middlemount Coal)
- gas sellers, gas customers and infrastructure providers on gas transportation, gas storage and gas sales arrangements (Grange Resources, Central Petroleum, APA)
- access and economic regulatory arrangements including in respect of:
- ACCC Murray Darling Basin water charges rules and exemptions (SunWater)
- National Competition Council declaration and revocation reviews regarding the Port of Newcastle (Yancoal)
- Queensland Competition Authority declaration reviews regarding Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal (DBCT User Group), Queensland Rail (New Hope, Yancoal and Glencore), including advising the DBCT User Group on successful defence of Dalrymple Bay Infrastructure's judicial review application
- Queensland Competition Authority access undertakings (DBCT User Group – Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal; Yancoal and New Hope – Queensland Rail rail network; individual coal producers – Aurizon Network rail network)
- ACCC undertakings (ARTC rail network – Anglo American and Yancoal))
- Gas pipeline reforms including the Vertigan review (Central Petroleum)
- Port Terminal Access (Bulk Wheat) Code of Conduct and exemptions (Wilmar Gavilon)
- Sugar Code of Conduct (Queensland Sugar)
- Queensland Competition Authority pricing investigations (Gladstone Area Water Board)
John is a member of the Law Council of Australia's Competition and Consumer Law Committee and the Queensland committee of the Energy Resources Law Association, author of the Resources Joint Ventures chapter of Joint Ventures Law in Australia (2012, 3rd edition) and editor of the 'Access to Services' section of the Australian Journal of Competition and Consumer Law.