Martin Houston, former COO of BG Group plc, has been named chairman — TPH International, investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) said. Houston, 56, will work with TPH’s Calgary and London offices to expand the firm’s cross-border presence in those markets, as well as provide expertise in the global gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets. Houston joined BG Group in the early 1980s and was serving on its board of directors when he retired as COO in early 2014. Houston was a key architect of BG Group’s LNG business. He also is the founding member of recently formed Parallax Energy (see Daily GPI, Oct. 24).

Scott Hamilton, who formerly worked as a land records manager for Consol Energy Inc., has pleaded guilty to mail fraud for a royalties scheme in which the U.S. Attorney’s Office said he stole $440,000 from the company’s interests at parcels in West Virginia and Illinois. Hamilton, 37, of Pennsylvania, was expected to make the plea after he reached an agreement with federal prosecutors in September (see Shale Daily, Sept. 23). In 2009, he established a fake company to file deed transfers that turned Consol’s royalty interests on the properties over to the phony business. Consol reported the missing royalties to the authorities. He is set to be sentenced in March.