Nov 9, 2017 3 min read

PITTSBURGH – Shareholders of EQT Corp. and Rice Energy Thursday separately approved the previously announced merger of Rice Energy into EQT, which will create the largest natural gas producer in the United States.

In a 7-minute meeting at EQT headquarters in Pittsburgh, EQT shareholders gave preliminary approval to the pending transaction with Rice Energy Inc. Rice shareholders took similar action during a meeting at Rice’s Southpointe headquarters.

On June 19, EQT announced it was acquiring Rice for $6.7 billion, with EQT acquiring all of the outstanding shares of Rice common stock.

Of the total shares cast by EQT shareholders, approximately 84 percent voted in favor of the proposal to issue stock for execution of the transaction. The final count was expected by the end of the day Thursday. EQT expects the transaction to close Monday. A news release from Rice said its shareholders “overwhelmingly” approved adoption of the agreement.

“We appreciate the strong support from our shareholders and are pleased that they recognize the outstanding strategic and operational fit of the Rice acquisition,” said Steve Schlotterbeck, EQT’s president and chief executive officer. “EQT is now one of the lowest-cost producers in the United States, possessing significant financial flexibility and an anticipated investment-grade credit rating, as well as more optionality to address the sum-of-the-parts discount.”

In June, when EQT announced the merger, Shlotterbeck said the transaction would “bring together two of the top Marcellus and Utica producers to form a natural gas operating position that will be unmatched in the industry.” He noted that Rice had built “an outstanding company with an acreage footprint that is largely contiguous to our existing acreage, which will provide substantial synergies and make this transaction significantly accretive in the first year.”

Since 2016, EQT has added more than 485,000 acres to its development portfolio.

According to data provided by EQT at the time of the June announcement, its Rice acquisition includes 187,000 core acres in the Marcellus; 64,000 in the Upper Devonian; 105,000 in the Pennsylvania and West Virginia Utica; and 65,000 in the Ohio Utica.

Already a leading producer in the Appalachian Basin, the Rice Energy acquisition makes EQT the largest natural gas producer in the United States.

With the acquisition, EQT’s 2017 estimated average sales volume will increase by 1.3 billion cubic feet per day to 3.6 Bcfe/d.

Rice went public in January 2014. Last year, it completed a move to a new headquarters building in the Zenith Ridge section of Southpointe.