Dow Jones hires new energy reporter

Angel Gonzalez, the Houston bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires, sent out the following announcement to the staff on Monday:

Ben Lefebvre joins the Houston bureau of Dow Jones Newswires to cover crude-oil refiners and the markets that influence fuel production in the U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer. Ben is taking on the beat as the hard-hit industry is trying to navigate away from the recession, grapple with global forces that are infringing on its home turf and adapt to changing regulations. He comes to us from chemical industry information service ICIS, where he covered chemicals and biofuels for three years.

Ben is taking the baton from Naureen Malik, who has covered refiners for us out of New York for the past year. Naureen is moving to the utilities and electricity markets beat.

A native of Detroit, Ben has lived in Houston since 2007, becoming familiar with the storms that often visit this part of the country — and with the operational havoc they create in markets and infrastructure. In the past, he has worked for the Chicago Sun-Times News Group as a municipal reporter, and as a staff writer at the Detroit Metro Times. He’s a fluent speaker of Japanese.

Please join me in welcoming Ben to his new assignment.