Dr. Laura T. W. Olive

Education

PhD in economics, Northeastern University
BA in economics, Simmons College

Experience

Laura T. W. Olive is an energy economist with more than 10 years of experience working with clients to navigate challenges and resolve disputes in the energy and transport industries. Dr. Olive is an expert in North American energy regulation. Her primary areas of expertise include energy regulation; oil, gas, and electricity market dynamics; energy transmission infrastructure; competition; and the energy transition. She develops simplified explanations of complex economic issues in the regulation and valuation of energy assets. Dr. Olive supports energy firms, utilities, governments, and interest groups around the world.

Dr. Olive has provided expert testimony in federal district courts and before both federal and state regulators in the United States and Canada. She has worked on litigation and international arbitration disputes throughout North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. The expertise Dr. Olive provides gives judges and regulators unbiased bases for their decisions. Her clients note Dr. Olive’s ability to explain complex concepts in a straightforward manner and her strict adherence to independence and objectivity.

Dr. Olive knows today’s energy industry continually faces new opportunities and challenges. She helps clients with their changing needs in the energy transition, including the impact of incorporating renewables on tariff design, incentive regulation, and cost recovery methods. She has extensive experience in the regulation of natural gas and oil markets, bankruptcy, and energy infrastructure.

She is well-versed in the economics of the cost of service and rate design techniques used by regulators around the world. She has supported clients in the pipeline, LNG, and electric transmission sectors in developing the appropriate methodology to set prices. Dr. Olive often develops valuation and lost profit models for damages claims in litigation.

Dr. Olive taught undergraduate microeconomics at Northeastern University. Her doctoral research focused on competition and market structure in infrastructure-intensive industries. She has written about the interaction of gas and electricity regulation and markets during New England’s polar vortex events in a paper published in the Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy. Dr. Olive has published in the Energy Law Journal on the differences between oil and gas pipeline regulation in the United States. She regularly speaks to industry groups and lawyers on North American oil, gas, and electricity market dynamics.