• Randy Hill, Cory Richards and David Myers plan to form a new E&P company that has not yet been named. The trio was partners in Plano, Texas-based Cortez Oil & Gas Inc., which they founded in 2000 with private equity from Natural Gas Partners and sold this spring to Encore Acquisition Co., Fort Worth, (NYSE: EAC) for $123 million. Currently, the partners are operating as HRM Resources. Funding of the new company will be with the founders' capital and with private equity from Natural Gas Partners again. They plan to focus on the Permian Basin, the Midcontinent, South Texas and certain parts of the Rockies. Hill can be reached at 972-781-6595. • Robert S. Boswell, former chairman of Forest Oil Corp., and James Schroeder, former president of Mesa Hydrocarbons Inc., another Denver independent, have formed Laramie Energy LLC in Denver, with an initial focus on the Piceance Basin of western Colorado. The new firm has received a $150-million equity commitment from EnCap Investments and CSFB Private Equity, a unit of Credit Suisse First Boston. Simultaneous with the funding, Laramie closed on its first acquisition, which is developed and undeveloped properties on more than 20,000 acres in Mesa County, Colorado. It intends to drill up to 150 wells there during the next few years. Boswell is chairman and chief executive of the new company and Schroeder is president and chief operating officer. Mesa was sold to EnCana Corp. last year for $97 million. Several ex-Mesa's management members also have joined Laramie. • Rod Mellott, formerly vice president, land and business development, for Denver-based Tom Brown Inc., which is now a subsidiary of Calgary-based EnCana Corp., plans to join other ex-Tom Brown executives in forming a new E&P company. A source of funding is expected by late summer or early fall. Meanwhile, Mellott can be reached at rgmellott@aol.com. • Endeavour International Corp., Houston, is now trading on the American Stock Exchange as END. The stock previously traded on the OTC Bulletin Board. Endeavour was founded earlier this year by William L. Transier, formerly of Ocean Energy Inc., and John N. Seitz, formerly of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. HX They serve as co-chief executive officers. • New York-based Morgan Stanley Capital Partners team members are buying out the business unit from parent Morgan Stanley é in a deal that one source describes as a relationship similar to the one Houston-based private-equity firm EnCap Investments had with El Paso Corp. Morgan Stanley Capital Partners is invested in Appalachian-focused gas producer Triana Energy Holdings Inc., which bought Columbia Energy Resources Inc. from NiSource Inc. last year, and is also invested in gas-gatherer and processor 1Cantera Resources Inc. and other energy-related companies. The team will establish an independent private-equity firm headed by Howard I. Hoffen, a Morgan Stanley managing director. Hoffen and senior investment team members, who have worked together for more than 12 years, will be owners of the new firm. The firm will continue to manage, through a long-term subadvisory role, the Morgan Stanley Capital Partners funds, which total $3.5 billion of private-equity investments. Morgan Stanley will continue as general partner and retain its limited-partner interests. The deal may close this summer. • ArcLight Capital Partners, an energy private-equity firm, based in Boston, has closed its ArcLight Energy Partners Fund II LP. The fund was oversubscribed with commitments totaling $1.6 billion. The target for the fund was $1.25 billion. Investors included CDP Capital wú and the University of Texas. New limited partners include Adams Street Partners, the Alberta Provincial Treasury, the BC Investment Authority, the California Public Employees Retirement System, Diamond Capital Management , the Mayo Foundation and the University of Washington. • Bank One has closed its middle-market Banc One Capital Markets #6 practice upon Bank One's merger with JPMorgan. The office included Kevin Neeley, director, M&A, energy practice, in Houston; one M&A staff member in Dallas; and 12 other employees in Houston, Dallas and Chicago. JPMorgan will continue to provide large, corporate-finance services, however. Bank One's commercial-lending energy practice, which has been led by Murphy Markham, will continue at JPMorgan, where Markham and his team have relocated. • Andy Rogers has joined Randall & Dewey Inc. to lead its new Calgary office. Rogers, a petroleum engineer, has been with a Canadian royalty trust for the past few years and previously was with Mobil Oil, including a couple of years in Bakersfield, Calif., with the Aera joint venture. He can be reached at 403-510-0857.