By: 28 January 2020
McLarens expands London natural resources team

McLarens has strengthened its London natural resources team with the appointment of two senior adjusters.

Miles Wakefield has joined as head of renewables and Mark Macdonald as head of upstream. The London natural resources team at McLarens handles an international book of business emanating from the Lloyd’s and London markets.

They will both report to London natural resources manager Joe Lampshire and be responsible for developing McLarens’s capability in their respective fields.

Wakefield joins from Charles Taylor and is an expert in the investigation of claims arising from offshore and onshore renewable energy generation losses. With more than 20 years of experience in offshore construction, he has worked with various offshore wind farm project owners and developers, managing the construction and operational phases of their assets in the UK and Germany.

He has also project managed the construction and installation of most major offshore wind farm components, including foundations, wind turbine generators (WTGs), offshore substations and subsea power cables.

His varied roles in the offshore wind construction have given him experience in managing contracts and contractors, in addition to dealing with major component repairs including losses relating to WTG gearboxes, blades, main bearings and transformers, as well as array and export cables.

Macdonald joins from AqualisBraemar with an extensive background in oil and gas drilling operations as a measurement/logging while drilling (M/LWD) engineer.

During his time in the industry, he worked on a variety of rigs during drilling operations throughout the Dutch and UK sectors of the North Sea, as well as onshore Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. He has experience of drilling conventional oil and gas wells, high pressure, high temperature wells, and geothermal wells.

Macdonald began his loss adjusting career in 2009 and has primarily focussed on the handling of onshore and offshore well control claims across the globe. He has also developed expertise in policy wordings associated with control of well and other upstream energy risks including physical damage, offshore construction and loss of production income / business interruption.

In 2012, Macdonald spent a number of years in Singapore, dealing with complex well control claims in the Asia Pacific region, including underground blowouts and incidents involving deep-water and managed pressure drilling.

David Pigot, director of London markets and global head of specialty at McLarens, commented: “By bringing in highly specialist, technical adjusters who understand the intricacies and nuances of their respective sectors, we are continuing to expand our natural resources capability across the globe and establishing McLarens as a global leader within this field. We’re delighted to have Miles and Mark on board, and I look forward to working with them both.”

Wakefield and Macdonald are the latest in a string of UK hires for McLarens and follow the recent recruitment of Mark Simmons, Blue Newton and Sean Gregory, three specialist adjusters within its construction and engineering team, who will operate alongside the natural resources practice to provide joint solutions to the energy and renewables sector.