In his office overlooking the jostling skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, Edward Morse is describing how, like so many others, he managed to get into the energy space by complete accident. "Every step of my career was unplanned," he says.

He joined Lehman Brothers a year ago as chief energy economist, after a career that has seen him take up influential positions in academia, government and finance.

Morse says that he had two introductions to the energy space, both of which proved decisive. The