Veteran LNG advisor Monica Hwang is moving to White & Case, leaving the Houston office of O’Melveny & Myers after nearly three years.
Hwang — whose background includes extensive experience in oil and gas finance, as well as energy risk analytics — has been drawn of late to the structural and financial complexities of LNG plant construction and development. And it was her global experience with massive projects from Australia to Mozambique, as well as the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, that prompted White & Case to pursue her, according to Jason Kerr, the firm’s head of global project development and finance.
“Houston is a key center of the LNG industry in the US, and Monica’s addition to our growing team in Texas will bolster our LNG offerings and strengthen our team’s capacity to provide clients with an unmatched full-service energy platform,” said Kerr, in a statement announcing Hwang’s arrival.
“Monica’s comprehensive experience across the spectrum of infrastructure sectors, including energy, energy transition, transport and water, is a significant asset as we continue to focus on building our energy projects team in Houston as part of the Firm’s broader strategy to grow our US practices to meet client demand.”
In addition to Hwang’s experience with LNG export and import facilities, she also advises on midstream and downstream projects and finance, including gas storage and pipeline and crude oil/refined products pipelines and terminals.
“This industry experience, coupled with her fluency in Mandarin Chinese, gives her a unique skillset to help clients navigate cross-border transactions,” said Jay Cuclis, the firm’s executive partner in Houston and co-head of its energy industry group.
Hwang said she got her first taste of the LNG space working in Australia for the Wheatstone LNG project, a project owned by Chevron with Woodside Energy. Since then, she has worked for Alaska LNG, Kitimat LNG in British Columbia, Mozambique’s Area 1 LNG and for Freeport and Cameron on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Born in Taiwan but raised on the Texas Gulf Coast near Port Lavaca, Hwang studied finance at the University of Texas and earned her law degree in 2007 from the University of Houston Law Center.
She worked at King & Spalding for more than 14 years before joining O’Melveny in November 2021. One of her new colleagues at White & Case, Peter Berg, lateraled from K&S in June.
For her part, Hwang says she enjoyed her tenure at O’Melveny, but working on projects with White & Case lawyers on several mega-projects convinced her that White & Case had the breadth and scale to offer the kind of involvement she needs for the next stage in her career: especially now, and especially in energy infrastructure.
“The news (is) clear, that we’re going to be doing a lot more energy infrastructure projects, whether it’s traditional or energy transition,” said Hwang.
“White & Case is the firm, top of my mind, that is the single firm in the best position to basically support a major energy infrastructure project throughout its life cycle: from the development stage, which is where I start, to the writing stage, all the way through financing and construction,” she said, adding: “Don’t forget construction.”
“I think White & Case is definitely positioned to be the firm that can do all of that.”
Despite some some well-chronicled market shortfalls and regulatory obstacles, Hwang said she still sees great enthusiasm in the LNG space. And with considerable experience in downstream LNG applications as well as upstream mega-structures, Hwang says new uses for LNG, like maritime bunkering, are likely to keep the space busy for the immediate future.
“On these cruise ships, major ships that are wanting to convert to burn a cleaner fuel, LNG is really one of the cleaner choices,” says Hwang. “So you’re starting to see a lot of interest in LNG bunkering in Asia, the Gulf of Mexico and Latin America.”