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ALAMOGORDO — An oil industry investor and executive says he will seek the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican Pete Domenici.

Spiro Vassilopoulos is the second Republican to announce his candidacy for the job held by Domenici since 1973.

Domenici announced Thursday he will retire in January 2009 - the end of his sixth term - because of an incurable brain disease.

Vassilopoulos, chief executive officer and part-owner of Port Westward LNG, announced his candidacy Saturday at the ranch of an Alamogordo family.

Rep. Heather Wilson, a Republican representing the Albuquerque-area 1st Congressional District, said Friday she is running for the Senate seat.

Vassilopoulos said he thinks his only serious competition would be Rep. Steve Pearce, a Hobbs Republican who has represented southern New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District since 2002.

Pearce is considering a run for Domenici's seat.

"Pearce is a fellow oil man and someone I consider to be intellectually honest," Vassilopoulos said. "I have great admiration for his abilities."

Vassilopoulos, who has never held a political office, said he has been a New Mexico resident on and off since the 1980s.

Another potential Republican candidate is state Land Commissioner Pat Lyons.

The only other declared Senate candidates are lesser-known political newcomers on the Democratic side: Don Wiviott, a Santa Fe home builder; Jim Hannan, Santa Fe Community Housing Trust financier; and Leland Lehrman, publisher of a Santa Fe alternative newspaper.

Not since 1972 have voters selected a U.S. senator without an incumbent on the ballot.

"It will be a real free-for-all," says Mickey Barnett, an Albuquerque Republican and former state senator from eastern New Mexico.

A U.S. Senate seat hasn't come open in New Mexico since the retirement of Democrat Clinton Anderson, who like Domenici was an influential Washington insider and political heavyweight at home.

Domenici's retirement not only opened up a Senate seat but at least one of the state's three House seats.

Wilson's announcement means no incumbent on the ballot next year for the 1st Congressional District seat, which has been in GOP hands since 1969 although Democrats hold an advantage in voter registration. Wilson won the seat in 1998.

Her quick announcement for the Senate was at least partly intended as pre-emptive strike to keep other Republicans out of the race.