Dr. William T. (Bill) Onorato (Ph.D, Cantab) is sole principal of WTO Consulting. Through it he conducts an active legal consulting practice as an International Energy Consultant and Arbitrator. An acknowledged and much published international expert on petroleum E&P regimes, contracts, laws and regulations, as well as petroleum joint development and international unitization regimes, he is available to provide expert legal advice and testimony to both private sector and governmental clients.

He is recently retired as Legal Adviser, Energy & Mining, for the World Bank where, for over 16 years he was the Bank’s principal legal counsel for its worldwide petroleum, energy, electric power and mining sector lending and technical assistance programs. Prior to joining the World Bank in mid-career, he had amassed extensive practical experience in the private sector in law and energy with, inter alia, Chrysler Corporation, Chevron, Getty Oil Company, and several major international law firms, both in the U.S. and abroad.

Presently, he co-teaches a course twice-yearly on “World Legal Systems and Contracts for Oil and Gas” for the CWC Group in London. He has also taught this course in-country at the request of government agencies in Mexico, Angola, Cambodia and Malaysia. He has been appointed to two international energy-related arbitrations under ICC rules as a party-appointed Arbitrator. Currently he is acting as an Expert Witness in two related international energy-based arbitrations under UNCITRAL and ICSID rules. He is also designated as both Arbitrator and Expert to the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration in Zamalek, Cairo, Egypt. He accepts appointments as a party-appointed or sole arbitrator, an expert witness and he can chair international arbitration panels.

From time-to-time, selectively, he advises several private and governmental clients on both international oil contracts and regimes and natural gas regulatory frameworks and contracts. Recently he was appointed as a consulting Petroleum Legal Adviser to the World Bank’s Oil, Gas and Mining Policy Division, where he will be advising member States on upstream petroleum matters worldwide on a demand-driven basis. Over the course of his career, he has held Adjunct Professorships in international law and business at Notre Dame Law School, the University of California, Berkeley and Georgetown University Law Center. Currently he is an Honorary Lecturer for the Centre for Energy, Mineral and Petroleum Law and Policy (CEPMLP) at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

Not all work-oriented in his “retirement”, he finds time to indulge in his non-professional passions and pursuits, most notably trekking and touring worldwide. He has been, both professionally and privately, in over 80 of the world’s countries. He hopes that you will enjoy the photos in the gallery of this website of his recent treks in Patagonia, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Switzerland and France. Please also check Bill’s Blog to read of his travels. There will be more photos and commentary to come!