Premier Oil Case Study

Situation

Premier Oil is an independent UK-headquartered oil & gas company with interests in the UK, Asia, Africa and Mexico. During what was to be a particularly busy period for the company, they required the continued support of the firm in addition to three interim lawyers to manage a variety of complex projects over a twelve month period in the UK, Falklands and Vietnam. As projects of strategic importance to Premier Oil, it was paramount those lawyers were of the appropriate calibre and with skillsets and industry experience which aligned to their requirements.

Steps taken

As an existing client of Pinsent Masons, they were already used to instructing the firm but had not previously used the Vario service. Recognising a Vario solution could be appropriate and they would benefit from a joined-up Pinsent Masons and Vario approach, the firm introduced Vario to Premier Oil in early 2019.

Utilising Vario’s global bench and unique matching process, we were able to quickly provide three lawyers with the specialist skills and the orientation needed to understand the unique cultural requirements of the organisation. This matching process involved the three lawyers meeting with senior stakeholders within the company, including our Singapore-based lawyer flying to Vietnam to meet the client alongside one of Pinsent Masons’ Partners.
Joining Premier Oil for an initial duration of between 3-6 months, Vario’s flexible model also meant if they needed to extend the lawyer’s assignments, they were able to do so with ease.

Results

By deploying a Vario solution, Premier Oil immediately benefitted from:

• Significantly reduced time-to-hire
• Pinsent Masons and Vario’s global footprint
• Flexibility to extend the assignment as needed
• Straight-forward, off balance sheet fee
• No employment overheads and administration
• Vario’s robust assignment management process

All three lawyers have since been able to alleviate significant workload demands on Premier Oil’s legal team and the client has been very positive about the impact that they have made. Additionally, Vario’s global footprint and integration with Pinsent Masons has meant Premier Oil have been able to engage with one provider across all three projects saving time and energy which otherwise would have been spent managing multiple service providers.