James Cress is counsel in the Denver office. His natural resources practice emphasizes international and U.S. mining and oil and gas law transactions, including financing. His general corporate practice includes derivatives agreements.

In the natural resources area, he has negotiated and documented complex acquisitions, asset dispositions and financings for coal, uranium, gold, copper, molybdenum, oil and gas and other mineral-producing clients. He has experience in private and U.S. federal mineral royalty matters, and has testified before Congress as a royalty expert. He has advised clients on the development, implementation and interpretation of mining law and regulation in the U.S., Asia, the former Soviet Union and Latin America. His international experience includes negotiation of substantial investments in developing countries, including investment agreement negotiations with various governments, and includes work in the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Ethiopia, Brazil, Suriname, Turkey, Haiti, Ghana, Armenia and Burma. He was a principal negotiator for international mining companies in the development of the form of Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) used for large scale mining investments in the Republic of the Philippines.

Mr. Cress’ general corporate practice includes development, implementation and documentation of derivatives trading programs for corporate end-users of derivative products, including oil & gas, precious metals, interest rate and currency hedging programs, as well as debt instruments with derivatives components.