Natural Gas Giant EQT Buys Marcellus Assets Of Alta Resources For $2.9 Billion

Natural Gas Giant EQT Buys Marcellus Assets Of Alta Resources For $2.9 Billion

Joe Greenberg launched Alta in 1999 with backing from the family of fracking pioneer George Mitchell. This week EQT announced the $2. 9 billion acquisition of the Marcellus shale assets of Alta Resources. The package consists of roughly 300, 000 net acres in the core northeastern Marcellus currently producing 1 billion cubic feet per day of dry gas, plus integrated pipeline assets. The purchase price is $1 billion in cash plus 105 million shares of common stock, worth some $1. 925 billion. Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. EQT , formerly known as Equitable Gas, is already the nation's biggest producer of natural gas, pumping nearly 4 billion cubic feet per day from the Marcellus shale gas fields of Pennsylvania. The deal is another win for Alta's veteran CEO Joseph Greenberg. Houston-based Alta Resources was founded in 1999 by Greenberg, who studied geology at Yale, then worked at Shell Oil, followed by Edge Petroleum where he met J. Todd Mitchell, son of the late billionaire George Mitchell (d. 2013), who had pioneered new methods of fracking for natural gas. Backed by Mitchell, Greenberg invested into new shale discoveries. In the Fayetteville shale fields of Arkansas, he assembled an acreage position that Alta sold