Dramatic growth followed by dramatic debt and restructuring mark the history of El Paso Corp. (NYSE: EP), according to chief executive Doug Foshee. Foshee was brought on board in September 2003 to-in effect-rescue the company. He is bringing it back to its core businesses: interstate natural gas pipelines and E&P, he said at a recent Houston Producers' Forum program. Since he joined El Paso, it has sold $7 billion of noncore assets-the latest deal an interest in a Korean power plant for $276 million. "We've been in the fight of our lives," Foshee said. "We've seen a dramatic contraction of assets and size, the Western energy crisis, the Enron implosion in 2001, the pipeline explosion in New Mexico and a raft of shareholder lawsuits. Eight of our 12 board members in the past three years have been new. We have a new CEO, chief financial officer, general counsel, head of human resources, head of unregulated businesses and head of regulated businesses. "By 2006, we want to be a company that can fund the capital required to grow, pay a dividend and earn $1 per share." In its heyday in the late 1990s, the Houston energy conglomerate had an enterprise value of $50 billion and was expanding rapidly into 20 industries beyond pipelines and upstream oil and gas, to power, service stations, coal, energy trading, telecom and real estate around the world. The markets rewarded El Paso even as it was losing focus and racking up $28 billion in debt-more debt than Shell (NYSE: SC) and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) combined, Foshee noted, and greater than that of some countries. A bitter proxy fight leading to last year's annual meeting, over the company's future direction, indicated the depth of employees' despair, as some 45% of them voted against incumbent management. Foshee said he is pleased with the turnaround of the pipeline business, the largest interstate system in the U.S. and one that goes from coast to coast, but he is still trying to right the E&P segment. "The pipeline segment is a franchise we need to protect at any cost and it fits in well with the North American gas theme. It could not be replaced today. We now see spending of $800- to $900 million annually in the pipelines and half of that is for growth." E&P is another story. El Paso has about 2 trillion cu. ft. equivalent in proved reserves after many asset sales. E&P spending has been cut from $2 billion a year to about $800 million. "When I came onboard, the E&P division reminded me of a problem child that needs to be sent away to military school," he said. The unit incorporated assets from Sonat, Zilkha Energy, the old Tenneco and Coastal Oil & Gas that had been acquired through the years. A focus on wildcatting and deep-gas drilling offshore and in South Texas led to $60 million in dry-hole expenses. Another problem was a lack of analysis to check results and risk-adjusted returns, as opposed to just building production rates. A new E&P management team now looks back at every project and also "counts pennies everywhere," Foshee said.