When Kevin McDermott, head of Prebon Energy’s London-based electricitydesk, first moved to Europe from the company’s New York office in 2001,US energy companies were still actively involved with the European energy markets.Following Enron’s demise, however, many such companies fled the marketand, as McDermott points out, the industry was forced to take a close look atitself.

The resulting “shake out”, as McDermott labels it, led to greaterefficiencies in the energy markets. “When I first