Patrick Heller

Patrick Heller is an advisor at NRGI and a senior visiting fellow at the Center on Law, Energy and Environment at the University of California – Berkeley. He has worked on legal reform and governance initiatives in the developing world for more than 15 years for organizations including USAID, the U.S. State Department, the Asian Development Bank, Creative Associates International and The International Center for Transitional Justice.

Patrick’s work at NRGI focuses on the governance of state-owned oil and mining companies, the analysis of extractive industry contracts and pathways to sustainability for fossil fuel-producing countries. He contributes extensively to NRGI’s programs of technical assistance to governments and civil society organizations throughout the world, and to NRGI’s capacity development efforts. He has facilitated courses on oil, gas and mining legal frameworks with partner institutions including the University of Oxford (U.K.), Columbia University (U.S.), Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia), the Catholic University of Central Africa (Cameroon) and Externado University (Colombia).

He holds a law degree from Stanford University and a master’s in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Publications

• Exporting the 'Norwegian Model': The effect of administrative design on oil sector performance
• NNPC and Nigeria's Oil Patronage Ecosystem
• The Limits of Institutional Design in Oil Sector Governance: Exporting the Norwegian Model