James

In outlining Duke Energy’s transition from an “energy superstore” into “two pure-play powerhouses,” CEO James Rogers predicted that the new Duke Energy pure-play electric company would grow ongoing diluted earnings per share by an average of 4-6% over at least the next three years through solid organic growth and a 1-1.5%/year increase in electricity demand.

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) CEO James Ferland said Wednesday the stand-alone energy company may consider further separating its unregulated and regulated operations at some point because of the adverse regulatory restrictions that led to the failure of its merger with Exelon.

James C. Yardley has been promoted to executive vice president of El Paso Corp. and president of the company’s pipeline group. Yardley is currently president of Southern Natural Gas Co. He will retain that role as well as assume responsibility for the management of all of El Paso’s pipeline and related activities. “Jim is an outstanding leader who brings broad experience and sound judgment, both strategic and operating, to this position,” said CEO Doug Foshee. “I am confident Jim will further our pipeline group’s strong performance and growth.” Yardley has a 28-year career with El Paso, which includes various corporate, marketing and pipeline responsibilities.

Calpine announced two new members of its senior management team. The company has named James Brown as senior vice president for commodity structuring and valuation and Jeffrey Kinneman as senior vice president for structured finance, strategy and restructuring. Kinneman joins the company from Texas Genco, which recently was acquired by NRG Energy. At Texas Genco he was acting chief risk officer and director of credit and risk management. Brown returns to Calpine, having previously served as vice president-structuring.

Sugar Land, TX-based Noble Corp. announced Thursday that Chairman and CEO James C. Day will retire effective April 30, 2007, which is consistent with a long standing succession planning process within the company. Day will retire from the board and the company after 30 years of service, 24 of which he has served as CEO. The board of directors also announced that it is their intent to name Mark A. Jackson as CEO after Day’s retirement. Noble Corp. provides diversified services — including contract drilling — for the oil and gas industry internationally.

Cinergy Corp. CEO James Rogers last Thursday said that Cinergy and Duke Energy are in “a very good position” to obtain approval of their pending merger from FERC without a hearing. He noted that there were “few interventions” in their case at the Commission, compared to the number filed in the Exelon-Public Service Enterprise Group merger case, which cleared FERC without a hearing.

Responding to critics of energy market volatility, James Newsome, president of the New York Mercantile Exchange, told a Senate committee attempts to decrease energy prices or volatility by installing narrow price limits on trading would be unsuccessful, and in fact, could work in the opposite direction.

Massachusetts Congressmen James McGovern and Barney Frank on Wednesday appealed to President Bush to support the Navy’s plea to reopen the controversial case to site the Weaver’s Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Fall River, MA, on the grounds that it would interfere with the Navy’s testing of warfare systems.

TXU Corp. announced the formation of a new corporate structure with separate retail and wholesale divisions on Wednesday and named two new executives to lead the new units. James A. Burke, formerly with Gexa Energy, Reliant and Coca-Cola, was named chairman and CEO of TXU Energy, the retail business, and Michael T. McCall, former president of TXU Gas, was named chairman and CEO of TXU Wholesale, which will optimize the wholesale energy purchases for the company’s power generation and retail operations.