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During the first quarter predominantly shale gas-focused EXCO Resources Inc. produced more and sold it for less. The company had planned to do the former and is making the best of the latter, said CEO Doug Miller, who told financial analysts last Wednesday that “it’s hard to put lipstick on this pig.”

During the first quarter predominantly shale gas-focused EXCO Resources Inc. produced more and sold it for less. The company had planned to do the former and is making the best of the latter, said CEO Doug Miller, who told financial analysts Wednesday that “it’s hard to put lipstick on this pig.”

The mayor of Dallas has directed city council to form a Gas Drilling Task Force and appointed a former council member to lead the body.

Dynegy Inc. announced Monday is has named a new interim CEO, E. Hunter Harrison, the former CEO at Canadian National Railway Co. and a current independent Dynegy director. He replaces another independent director, David Biegler, who was serving as the independent power provider’s CEO on an interim basis since Bruce Williamson resigned (see Daily GPI, Feb. 23). Biegler will continue to serve on the Dynegy board along with other independent directors Patricia Hammick, Victor Grijalva, Howard Sheppard and William Trubeck. As announced in February, these directors are not standing for reelection at the company’s annual shareholders meeting in June15. Hammick will continue as chairman of the board. A search continues by the board for a permanent president/CEO of the company. Harrison, 66, had a long career as a CEO and board member of several companies in the U.S. and Canadian companies. Four new directors joined Dynegy’s board in March (see Daily GPI, March 10) — selected by one of the company’s two major shareholders, billionaire Carl Icahn or Seneca Capital — and Harrison has ties to these new board members, according to Biegler who characterized the new interim CEO’s selection as “an important step as we execute the transition to new leadership.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has denied former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s appeal of his May 2006 convictions. Skilling in 2006 was sentenced in Houston by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to 24 years in federal prison following his convictions on 19 criminal charges related to Enron’s bankruptcy in 2001: one count of conspiracy, 12 counts of securities fraud, five counts of making false representations to auditors and one count of insider trading (United States v. Jeffrey K. Skilling, No. 06-20885).The defense appealed, arguing, among other things, that the 19 counts were tainted by the use of the “honest services” fraud theory, which was one of the objects of the conspiracy charge. The Fifth Circuit denied a defense motion to overturn the convictions, but it said Skilling’s sentence needed to be recalculated and ordered he be resentenced. On appeal the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed Skilling’s conviction for honest services fraud (see NGI, June 28, 2010). The justices, however, did not reverse any of Skilling’s convictions, but they remanded the case back to the Fifth Circuit to determine whether the honest services instruction to the district court jury amounted to “harmless error.” The district court’s instruction to the Houston jury was indeed a harmless error, the Fifth Circuit judges said in their ruling. As it had ruled in 2009, the Fifth Circuit also stated that Skilling’s sentence had been miscalculated. According to the opinion, the circuit court now will take up resentencing.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has rebuffed former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling’s appeal of his May 2006 convictions.

Joseph Martens has been confirmed as commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). Martens, a former president of the Open Space Institute, has been acting commissioner of the DEC since his appointment on Jan. 4 by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He was unanimously confirmed by the Republican-controlled state Senate. The DEC is working to meet a July 1 deadline to prepare a supplemental generic environmental impact statement on hydraulic fracturing (see NGI, Dec. 20, 2010; July 28, 2008). Martens replaces Alexander “Pete” Grannis as DEC commissioner. Grannis was fired by Paterson last October for allegedly leaking internal memos to the media that were critical of staff cuts — cuts that Grannis argued would impede DEC’s effectiveness in overseeing gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale (see NGI, Nov. 29, 2010).

Former Fluor Corp. CEO Alan Boeckmann has been elected to the Sempra Energy board of directors, bringing a background in international business management in the engineering/construction sector. Boeckmann is a director of BHP Billiton and a board member of the National Petroleum Council. He also serves as the nonexecutive chairman of the board at Fluor, where he held several senior management and operating positions before becoming CEO in 2002.

Former Houston gas trader Stephanie Roqumore pleaded guilty last week to two counts of wire fraud arising from a scheme to defraud numerous natural gas trading companies of nearly $8 million, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said.