In its second such agreement since April, Norway-based Equinor announced Wednesday the completion of its acquisition of EQT’s interest in Pennsylvania’s Northern Marcellus with a $1.25 billion purchase of gas units operated there by Expand Energy.
The purchase follows — and completes — a swap agreement announced in April in which EQT exchanged a 40 percent interest in those same assets for Equinor’s assets in the Appalachian Basin and $500 million in cash. EQT says it plans to use the proceeds to reduce debt load acquired with its $14 billion acquisition of Equitrans Midstream in July.
With the transaction, Equinor is increasing its average working interest in the Northern Marcellus asset from 25.7 percent to 40.7percent. The transaction adds approximately 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) to Equinor’s US production in the near-term.
Jefferies acted as lead financial advisor and TD Securities acted as a financial advisor to EQT.
Kirkland & Ellis is EQT’s outside legal counsel led from Houston by corporate partners Lindsey Jaquillard and Chad Smith along with Luke Powers Strother with corporate partners David Feirstein and Cyril Jones. Isaac Bate also advised on the deal as a Kirkland associate in Houston but has since left to become associate general counsel at Northern Oil & Gas.
“We continue to high-grade Equinor’s international portfolio in line with our strategy, improving robustness by adding more natural gas volumes in a core market where we produce with low break-evens and low intensity upstream emissions. We are well positioned in this premium acreage to capitalize on positive long-term demand indicators in the U.S. gas market,” said Equinor EVP Philippe Mathieu in the announcement.
“The U.S. is a core country for Equinor, where we have shaped a robust onshore and offshore oil and gas portfolio, alongside our activities in offshore wind, battery storage, and low-carbon value chains,” says Mathieu.