Mr. Payne advises clients on the development and financing of energy and infrastructure projects, including related acquisitions and privatizations. Steve's clients include host state enterprises, investors and lenders and his experience includes projects in the airport, clean energy, oil and gas, petrochemical, power, water and wastewater, and telecommunication sectors, with a focus on Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

Based in Beijing since 2006, Steve worked in the Firm's Washington, DC office from 1999 and the Firm's Jakarta, Indonesia office from 1997 to 1999. Before joining the Firm in 1997, he worked in Nairobi, Kenya, managing a large regional humanitarian assistance program, and in the banking group of another leading New York law firm, advising clients on leveraged and project financings, and sovereign and corporate debt restructurings.

Recent experience includes representing clients in the following projects:

Project Development

• Saudi Aramco (the Saudi Arabian state-owned oil company) in the development and financing of third party projects to supply industrial gases to the proposed integrated chemicals joint venture between Saudi Aramco and The Dow Chemical Company in Saudi Arabia. This will be the largest chemicals project ever undertaken at one time. 
• Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) in connection with its US$3.28 billion joint venture with China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) to acquire and operate a new petrochemical complex adjacent to Sinopec's existing refineries in the coastal municipality of Tianjin, which will consist of a one million ton per annum ethylene cracker and downstream derivative units that will produce 2.2 million tons of chemical and petrochemical products annually. 
• Asia Clean Capital Limited, a Hong Kong clean energy company, in the development and financing of a series of projects to provide geothermal heat pump heating and cooling utilities to industrial customers in China. 
• Saudi Aramco in the development and financing of a US$1.1 billion third party project to supply water, steam and power to the US$9.9 billion Rabigh integrated refinery and petrochemical joint venture with Sumitomo Chemical in Saudi Arabia. 
• Saudi Aramco in the development and financing of the US$670 million third party Tihama Cogeneration Projects to supply power and steam to four oil and gas facilities in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. 
• The World Bank in the privatization of the development and operation of municipal water and sewage facilities in Albania.

Project Financing 

• China Development Bank (CDB) in the €220 million financing for Zapp (Holdings) B.V to refinance existing debt in connection with Zapp's acquisition of Qualcomm's minority interests in Portuguese and Romanian CDMA mobile network operators and to finance capital expenditures. 
• CDB in the €640 million financing for P4 z.o.o. rollout of its UMTS network in Poland. 
• International Finance Corporation (IFC) in the US$85 million and US$120 million financings of the privatizations of the expansion, modernization and operation of Jamaica's Sangster International Airport and Costa Rica's Juan Santamaria International Airport. 
• IFC, Barclays Capital, Calyon and Société Générale in the US$680 million financing of the Port Said and Suez Gulf independent power projects in Egypt. 
• Société Général and a commercial bank syndicate in the US$300 million secured refinancing of Coelba, a Brazilian electricity distribution company. 
• Inter-American Development Bank, ABN Amro Bank, Calyon and COFACE in the US$277 million, and ABN Amro Bank, Calyon and COFACE in the US$240 million, financings of adjacent private power projects in Mexico.

Bars and Courts
New York State Bar, 1988
District of Columbia Bar, 2001

Education
JD, Cornell University Law School, 1987
BA, Middlebury College, 1982

Languages
English

Citizenship
United States