“Anytime there is a void in the market, banks examine their opportunitiesmore intensely,” says Pamela Baden, managing director of Bear Stearns’ Houston-basedenergy group. “And after a thorough review, Bear Stearns decided therewere valuable opportunities for the bank in energy.”

But unlike other banks that established energy trading desks following the energymerchant collapse, Bear Stearns took a different approach. The bank’s energygroup, created last June, is solely concerned with buying