EQT will acquire Range Resources in an all-stock deal creating America's largest vertically integrated natural gas producer, with a pro forma enterprise value above $50 billion and an expected close in early 2027.
EQT Corporation said on Monday it would acquire Range Resources in an all-stock deal, creating what the two companies called America's largest vertically integrated natural gas producer, with a pro forma enterprise value of more than $50 billion. Range shareholders will receive 0.987 EQT shares for each Range share they hold, and the combined company will keep its headquarters in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
The exchange ratio values Range at about $12.83 billion in equity, according to a Reuters calculation based on Range's 233.68 million shares outstanding, with an implied price of $54.91 a share, about 20.6 percent above Range's closing price last Friday. EQT shareholders will own about 73 percent of the combined company and Range investors about 27 percent. The companies expect the deal to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, and two Range representatives, including chief executive Dennis Degner, will join EQT's board.
The combined producer will turn out more than 9 billion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent a day, control nearly 3 million net acres in the Appalachian Basin, hold more than 30 years of drilling inventory and own about 3,700 miles of midstream infrastructure. EQT said the deal would push its free cash flow breakeven below $2 per million British thermal units and generate about $325 million of annual savings within two years, with a path to more than $600 million over the longer term. The two companies also cancelled their previously scheduled third-quarter earnings calls for October 28 and will instead report results after the market closes on October 27.
The terms, the exchange ratio and the closing timetable come from the companies' joint announcement, which is the primary record for this deal, while the equity value and the premium are Reuters' own arithmetic from Range's share count and Friday's close, not figures the companies themselves published. Nothing in the announcement says the deal has closed or cleared regulators, so the 2027 closing date is a target, not a completed transaction, and the savings and cash flow figures are the companies' projections at recent pricing, not audited results.
The timing points to the market the companies say they are chasing: growing demand for natural gas from data centres, which Reuters cites as the reason producers are seeking larger output and deeper drilling inventories. If regulators and both sets of shareholders approve, the combined company would arrive as the country's biggest gas producer just as that demand builds; if approval slips, the same scale that makes the deal attractive becomes the question, since a producer of this size will draw close attention from competition reviewers. The next fixed points are the October 27 results and the shareholder votes that must come before any closing.