11th Powering Africa Summit: Powering the US-Africa Partnership: Energy Infrastructure, Critical Minerals & Investment Strategies

Shah Jahan H. Khandokar is a Partner at McDermott Will & Schulte in London with a practice focused on complex energy, infrastructure, mining, and natural resources transactions across emerging and developed markets.

Shah Jahan helps clients navigate complex regulatory, financing, and geopolitical challenges to deliver transformative projects that support economic growth, sustainable development, and the transition to resilient economies.

He represents sponsors, investors, lenders, multilateral institutions, commodity traders, and governments on the development, financing, acquisition, and implementation of strategic projects. His experience spans renewable energy, conventional power, hydrogen, LNG, oil and gas, critical minerals, rare earth elements, and digital infrastructure, with a particular focus on assets and supply chains that support the global energy transition.

Shah Jahan has advised on some of the world's most significant energy developments, including the Shah Deniz Stage 2 project and associated Southern Gas Corridor infrastructure, a landmark development that expanded access to Caspian gas supplies for European markets. He has also advised on large-scale LNG, pipeline, power generation, renewable energy, and energy-transition projects across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.

In the mining and natural resources sector, Shah Jahan advises on the development, financing, acquisition, and commercialization of projects involving critical minerals, rare earth elements, battery metals, and other strategic resources. His experience includes project structuring, offtake arrangements, pricing mechanisms, strategic partnerships, and cross-border investments, often in jurisdictions that are central to the supply chains underpinning clean energy technologies, advanced manufacturing, and energy security.

His practice is particularly focused on Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, where he has advised on many of those regions’ most significant energy, infrastructure, and natural resources developments.