The lead developer of the Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline agreed to be acquired by the company it split from five years ago, contingent on federal approval to start shipping gas on the line.
EQT proposed the pipeline in West Virginia and Virginia before handing it to Equitrans Midstream in a corporate spinoff in late 2018. Officials at Pittsburgh-based EQT, the country’s largest gas producer, said the idea behind the deal announced Monday is to create a gas company that can reduce expenses and increase cash flow.
The all-stock purchase price: more than $5 billion as of Monday.
“Equitrans is the most strategic and transformational transaction EQT has ever pursued,” EQT CEO Toby Rice said in a statement, “and we see this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to vertically integrate one of the highest quality natural gas resource bases anywhere in the world.”
