Trying to meet analysts expectations for quarterly performance has gotten so far out of hand that it’s causing energy executives to make unsound business decisions, said the former head of Denver-based Tom Brown Inc.

“This whole public market has just gotten out of whack. This quarterly expectation in our E&P business is really ridiculous…It drives business people to make the wrong decisions,” said Jim Lightner, former president and CEO of Tom Brown, which was acquired by Calgary-based EnCana Corp.

There is a “stupid, short-term focus by the Street,” he noted at the Rocky Mountain Natural Gas Strategy Conference & Investment Forum in Denver, CO, on Aug. 10. Lightner, along with five former officers of Tom Brown, has formed a start-up energy company, Orion Energy Partners.

“We’re not chasing the decline curve” like the big boys, Lightner said. “When you’re a big company you’re chasing hard just to stay flat.” Also, “it’s nice to be out from under [the] scrutiny” facing public energy companies in the wake of the Enron Corp. scandal.

He said he worked for an Enron subsidiary for 10 years before Tom Brown, and believed it was appropriate to “see some of those guys in handcuffs.” But he noted that “99.9% of [energy] companies are clean.”

For start-up energy firms, Lightner said access to capital is not a problem. It’s “fairly reasonable and accessible to go get capital if you have a decent management team and a solid business plan.”

The Rocky Mountains are going to be a “big part of our business plan,” but not the sole focus, he noted. “Diversity is good, healthy and wise.” He estimated the Rockies will account for about 50% of the new company’s portfolio.

Lightner also assailed anti-development forces who are trying to get the Sage Grouse put on the Endangered Species Act list. “I don’t think they give a darn…about the species. They [just] want to shut us down…on federal land,” he said. “This endangered species battle is going to be large and go on for a long time,” he predicted.

As for industry’s concern about tight gas pipeline capacity out of the Rocky Mountains, he said “I think that’s been solved for the time being.”

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