EQT to Buy Range Resources in $50 Billion Deal, Creating America's Largest Natural Gas Producer

EQT Corporation said Monday it has agreed to acquire Range Resources Corporation in an all-stock transaction that would create the largest vertically integrated natural gas producer in the United States, with a combined enterprise value exceeding $50 billion. The two companies announced the definitive merger agreement early Monday, after signing it the previous day, and held a joint investor call at 8 a.m. Eastern to walk through the terms.

Under the agreement, each share of Range common stock will convert into 0.987 shares of EQT stock, with cash paid for any fractional shares, according to a securities filing EQT made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. When the deal closes, existing EQT shareholders would hold roughly 73 percent of the combined company and Range shareholders about 27 percent, on a fully diluted basis. Both companies' boards approved the transaction unanimously.

The numbers behind the deal

The combined company would produce more than 9 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent per day, hold nearly 3 million net acres with more than 30 years of drilling inventory, and operate over 3,700 miles of midstream pipeline infrastructure, the companies said. EQT projects the merger will lower its unlevered free cash flow breakeven to below $2 per million British thermal units and generate roughly $20 billion in cumulative free cash flow over five years at recent strip pricing, while achieving investment-grade, BBB-quality credit metrics at closing.

EQT expects $325 million in annual cost synergies within two years of closing, spread across corporate overhead, field operations and commodities marketing, with what it called a pathway to more than $600 million in longer-term savings from infrastructure optimization and improved natural gas, NGL and LNG marketing. A separate filing from Range disclosed the deal's breakup terms: if the merger falls apart under specified circumstances, Range would owe EQT a termination fee of $423 million, while EQT would owe Range $1.148 billion, according to Range's own 8-K filing describing the merger agreement in detail.

Two Appalachian rivals, one company

EQT and Range have operated side by side in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of the Appalachian Basin for more than a decade, at times as rivals for acreage and at other times as trading partners; the companies completed an asset exchange in the region more than ten years ago. EQT, based in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, has spent the past several years consolidating Appalachian gas production and midstream assets, including its 2024 acquisition of Equitrans Midstream, to build what it describes as a vertically integrated model that controls gas from the wellhead through the pipeline. Range, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, with its Appalachian operations centered in Southpointe, Pennsylvania, has built a reputation for disciplined capital spending and has been a major exporter of natural gas liquids.

The combined company will keep its headquarters in Canonsburg, and EQT's existing management team, led by President and Chief Executive Toby Z. Rice, will run the enlarged company. Range CEO Dennis L. Degner and one additional Range-selected, independent director will join an expanded 12-member EQT board at closing, according to the filing. Both companies' third-quarter earnings calls, originally scheduled for Oct. 28, have been canceled; both still plan to release quarterly results after markets close on Oct. 27.

"This combination of two highly successful operators with decades of inventory creates a must-own energy company capable of generating durable, through-cycle free cash flow," EQT CEO Toby Rice said in the companies' joint announcement.

Who is affected

Shareholders of both companies will vote on the deal, a required condition for closing alongside antitrust clearance and other regulatory approvals; the merger agreement sets an outside date of Oct. 25, 2027, automatically extended to April 25, 2028, if only antitrust-related conditions remain unresolved. Range equity award holders would see restricted stock units and performance share units converted into EQT equivalents under terms spelled out in the filing, while workers in the overlapping Appalachian operations face the standard uncertainty of a large-scale corporate combination, though neither company has announced workforce or facility decisions. Pipeline & Gas Journal, an industry trade publication, noted the deal lands amid a period of six-month-low natural gas prices in the region, a backdrop that has pushed smaller Appalachian producers toward consolidation to cut costs.

Downstream, the deal could reshape supply relationships for utilities and the growing roster of data centers and LNG exporters along the East Coast that have been signing long-term gas contracts with Appalachian producers. A larger, vertically integrated EQT would control a greater share of the pipeline capacity connecting Appalachian gas fields to those buyers.

What's next

EQT said it will file a registration statement on Form S-4 with the SEC to register the new shares to be issued to Range shareholders, a filing that will need to become effective before the deal can close. Citi and RBC Capital Markets are advising EQT on the financial side, with Kirkland & Ellis as legal counsel; Evercore is Range's lead financial adviser alongside J.P. Morgan Securities, with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher serving as legal counsel. Both companies said they expect the transaction to close in the first quarter of 2027, pending shareholder votes, the expiration of antitrust waiting periods and other customary conditions. Analysts and regulators are expected to scrutinize the deal's effect on concentration in the Appalachian gas market as the review process unfolds in the coming months.