M&A

Electrical Generation | Energy Companies | Equinor/Statoil | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | M&A | Pennsylvania

Upstream Goes Downstream: Equinor Buys Into Scranton Power Plant
August 19, 2026August 19, 2026

Norway’s Equinor — the company we all used to call Statoil — announced Monday it is buying a majority interest in the Lackawanna Energy Center (LEC), the big Marcellus-fired power plant in Jessup, PA, just outside Scranton. Equinor is paying $940 million for 87.71% of the Class A shares in the 1,483-megawatt plant, buying them from funds managed by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which is now part of BlackRock. Invenergy, which built LEC and has run it since day one, stays on as operator. MDN has followed this plant since it was nothing but a proposal and a pile of angry town council meetings (see MDN’s LEC coverage), so this one hits close to home — literally, since the plant sits two counties from MDN world headquarters. Read More “Upstream Goes Downstream: Equinor Buys Into Scranton Power Plant”
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pennsylvania | UGI Energy Services

KKR $9B Bid for UGI Puts NEPA Marcellus Midstream Assets in Play
August 19, 2026August 19, 2026

A Wall Street rumor landed Tuesday that most of the financial press covered as a Wall Street story. We’re going to cover it as a Susquehanna County story — because buried inside UGI Corporation, the Valley Forge-based utility holding company that private equity giant KKR reportedly wants to buy for $9 billion, sits one of the more important collections of gathering, storage and pipeline assets in the northeast Marcellus. Read More “KKR $9B Bid for UGI Puts NEPA Marcellus Midstream Assets in Play”
BP | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | M&A

BP to Sell Archaea Energy Four Years After $4.1B Rice Boys Deal
August 13, 2026August 13, 2026

Remember when Dan Rice IV (older brother of EQT CEO Toby Rice) sold his landfill-gas company Archaea Energy to BP for $4.1 billion back in 2022, pocketing the Rice family somewhere between $720 million and $975 million in the process? Well, what goes around comes around: BP told investors this week it’s now looking to sell Archaea. On the company’s Q2 2026 earnings call, new BP CEO Meg O’Neill said Archaea has turned out to be a “capital-intense” way to play the biogas market, and BP would rather go “capital-light” going forward. Translation: RNG isn’t the money-printer BP thought it would be four years ago, and Big Oil’s would-be savior molecule is getting shopped to the highest bidder. Read More “BP to Sell Archaea Energy Four Years After $4.1B Rice Boys Deal”
Dominion Energy | Electrical Generation | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pipelines

Dominion Energy: Gas Is Winning, Renewables Are Getting Written Off
August 3, 2026August 3, 2026

Dominion Energy reported second-quarter 2026 results on July 31, and while Wall Street focused on the penny-counting, there were three items in the release and on the analyst call that matter to Marcellus/Utica producers, midstreamers, and landowners: two new gas-fired power plants moving into permitting, a merger timeline that’s now locked in at the state level, and a nine-figure write-off on renewable assets that tells you which way the wind is actually blowing. Read More “Dominion Energy: Gas Is Winning, Renewables Are Getting Written Off”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | M&A | NextEra Energy | North Carolina | South Carolina | Virginia

Dominion/NextEra File to Merge; Greens Try but Fail to Stop Clock
July 29, 2026July 29, 2026

Back in May we brought you the news that NextEra Energy is buying and merging with Dominion Energy in a deal valued around $66.8 billion (see NextEra Energy Buying, Merging with Dominion Energy for $66 Billion), followed by our rundown of the Marcellus/Utica projects that may be affected (see M-U Projects Potentially Impacted by NextEra/Dominion Merger). On July 15, the two companies stopped talking and started filing. They submitted applications to five separate regulators: the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC), the North Carolina Utilities Commission, the Public Service Commission of South Carolina, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Virginia filing is the big one — it started a statutory clock that runs out January 11, 2027. And the anti-fossil fuel crowd in Richmond immediately tried to jam that clock. Read More “Dominion/NextEra File to Merge; Greens Try but Fail to Stop Clock”
Energy Companies | Expand Energy | Industrywide Issues | M&A

Expand Buys Gas Marketer Twin Eagle for $1.25B – Why M-U Should Care
July 28, 2026July 28, 2026

Expand Energy, the largest natural gas producer in North America and a giant in the Marcellus/Utica, announced yesterday that it has signed a definitive agreement to buy Twin Eagle Holdings for $1.25 billion in cash from private equity owner Five Point Infrastructure. Twin Eagle is not a driller. It doesn’t own a single well. It’s a physical gas marketer — a middleman that buys gas from producers, moves it through pipelines and storage, and sells it to utilities, power plants, and factories. Twin Eagle markets more than 5 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day), controls 44 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of storage and roughly 2 Bcf/d of firm pipeline capacity, and serves over 1,000 customers across the U.S. and Canada. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. When it does, Expand becomes the country’s biggest gas seller as well as its biggest gas producer. Read More “Expand Buys Gas Marketer Twin Eagle for $1.25B – Why M-U Should Care”
Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | M&A | New York

PowerTransitions Closes on Deal for 5 Gas-Fired Power Plants in NY
July 24, 2026July 24, 2026

In April, MDN reported that PowerTransitions, an independent power producer specializing in redeveloping legacy power facilities, had agreed to acquire five New York gas-fired power plants — Batavia, Hillburn, Massena, Shoemaker, and Sterling — totaling 323 megawatts (MW) from Alliance Energy Group affiliates (see PowerTransitions Buying 5 Gas-Fired Power Plants in Anti-Gas NY). The company announced yesterday that it has closed on its purchase. Read More “PowerTransitions Closes on Deal for 5 Gas-Fired Power Plants in NY”
Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pipelines

UAE Closes on Minority Stake in Rover Pipeline, Ohio River System
July 16, 2026July 16, 2026

The Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) investment group 2PointZero, via its subsidiary ePointZero, closed on its deal to acquire U.S. natural gas infrastructure firm Traverse Midstream Partners for $2.25 billion. This acquisition includes stakes in the Rover Pipeline and Ohio River System, which connect the productive Utica/Marcellus shale region to major demand centers and export hubs. The all-cash transaction gives the Abu Dhabi-based energy infrastructure platform a 35% non-operated stake in the Rover Pipeline and a 25% interest in the Ohio River System (ORS), both of which are operated by Energy Transfer. Read More “UAE Closes on Minority Stake in Rover Pipeline, Ohio River System”
Electrical Generation | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Licking County | M&A | Ohio | Williams | Wood County (OH)

Williams Sells 49% of Five Ohio Gas-Fired Power Plants for $5.34B
July 14, 2026July 14, 2026

Pipeline giant Williams announced a $5.34 billion investment led by Blackstone Credit & Insurance, in partnership with Apollo and KKR, to fund its five behind-the-meter Power Innovation projects: Socrates, Apollo, Aquila, Socrates the Younger, and Neo. All five projects are located in Ohio and will use Utica (or Marcellus) shale gas. In exchange for the money, the investors receive a 49% noncontrolling ownership stake, while Williams retains 51% ownership and operational control, plus a buyout right between years 7 and 14. While the headline numbers focus on high-finance metrics, the practical, on-the-ground effect of this deal directly reshapes the Appalachian natural gas landscape, pipeline dynamics, and the regional race to power the AI-driven data center boom. Read More “Williams Sells 49% of Five Ohio Gas-Fired Power Plants for $5.34B”
Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | M&A | New York | Orange County

PowerTransitions Buys 6th Gas-Fired Power Plant in Anti-Gas NY
July 2, 2026July 2, 2026

In April, MDN reported that PowerTransitions, an independent power producer specializing in redeveloping legacy power facilities, had agreed to acquire five New York gas-fired power plants — Batavia, Hillburn, Massena, Shoemaker, and Sterling — totaling 323 megawatts (MW) from Alliance Energy Group affiliates (see PowerTransitions Buying 5 Gas-Fired Power Plants in Anti-Gas NY). PowerTransitions announced a new deal yesterday to buy a sixth NY gas-fired power plant whose output dwarfs the other five combined. PowerTransitions has entered into an agreement to acquire the 1,242 MW Roseton Generating Facility in Newburgh, New York, from a subsidiary of Castleton Commodities International LLC. As with the first deal (for five plants), the terms were not disclosed. Read More “PowerTransitions Buys 6th Gas-Fired Power Plant in Anti-Gas NY”
Devon Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

“Top 5” Shareholder in Devon Energy Pushes Company to Sell Itself
June 18, 2026June 18, 2026

Devon Energy completed its merger with Coterra Energy just over one month ago, on May 7, paying Coterra $21.4 billion in Devon stock (see Devon and Coterra Complete Merger, Launches $8B Buyback Program). It’s been no secret that one of the larger investors in Coterra and Devon (owning about 1.4% of Devon’s stock), so-called activist investor Kimmeridge, lobbied Coterra prior to the merger to sell off its Marcellus assets (see Activist Investor Declares Coterra Merger Failed – Sell Marcellus). Kimmeridge has some new company. Another so-called activist investor, TOMS Capital Investment Management, recently invested big money in the combined Devon (now a “top 5” investor in Devon) and is pressuring the recently merged company to sell assets and (in a complete surprise), consider selling itself! Just a month after merging! Read More ““Top 5” Shareholder in Devon Energy Pushes Company to Sell Itself”
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | KLX Energy | M&A

M-U Man Camp & Mobile Command Center Provider Sold for $17 Million
June 3, 2026June 3, 2026

KLX Energy Services has acquired all assets of Wolfpack Rentals for $17 million, including $14 million at closing and two deferred payments of $1.5 million each. Wolfpack, founded in 2005 and based in Texas, provides surface rental equipment and services to oil and gas E&P, midstream, construction, and industrial customers across Texas and the Marcellus/Utica region, including regional offices and operations in West Virginia and Ohio. A better way to understand Wolfpack is to think of them as renting trailers for “man camps” — temporary settlements of oil and gas workers in remote locations. Read More “M-U Man Camp & Mobile Command Center Provider Sold for $17 Million”
Devon Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Investment Firm Offers Devon Energy $8B for PA Marcellus Assets
June 1, 2026June 1, 2026

From the very first whisper of the rumor that Devon Energy was sniffing around a buyout and merger with Coterra Energy, we wondered, speculated, and worried about what such a merger would mean for Coterra’s considerable Marcellus assets in northeast Pennsylvania. From the outset, activist investor Kimmeridge (with a stake in both Coterra and Devon) has pressured Devon to consider selling the Marcellus assets (see Kimmeridge Hints Devon Energy Needs to Sell M-U After Coterra Merger). Reuters is reporting the rumor, based on super-secret inside sources, that investment firm Stone Ridge Asset Management is offering Devon $8 billion to take the Marcellus off its hands. Read More “Investment Firm Offers Devon Energy $8B for PA Marcellus Assets”
Industrywide Issues | M&A

ArcLight Capital, Owner of Major Assets in M-U, Sold to Japan Co.
May 28, 2026May 28, 2026

Founded in 2001, ArcLight Capital Partners is a leading infrastructure investor focused on critical electrification assets. The firm has owned, controlled, or operated more than 70 GW of assets and 48,000 miles of electric and gas transmission and storage infrastructure, representing over $90 billion in enterprise value. ArcLight invests across power, hydro, solar, wind, battery storage, electric and natural gas transmission, storage infrastructure, and digital power. ArcLight is an investor/owner of a number of key assets in the Marcellus Utica, including gas-fired power plants and pipelines (see our ArcLight stories here). ArcLight is being sold for $1 billion to a subsidiary of Japan’s SoftBank Group, one of the world’s largest technology investors. Read More “ArcLight Capital, Owner of Major Assets in M-U, Sold to Japan Co.”
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | M&A | NextEra Energy

NextEra Energy Buying Shale Investor Caliber Resource Partners
May 21, 2026May 21, 2026

NextEra Energy, headquartered in Juno Beach, Florida, is gobbling up companies left and right. Earlier this week, NextEra announced it is buying out and merging with a fellow utility giant, Dominion Energy (see NextEra Energy Buying, Merging with Dominion Energy for $66 Billion). That deal is largely about supplying data centers with power from gas-fired power plants. And now, according to sources whispering to Reuters, NextEra is buying out and merging with oil and gas investment firm Caliber Resource Partners for $1.3 billion. Read More “NextEra Energy Buying Shale Investor Caliber Resource Partners”
Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | LDCs | M&A | NextEra Energy | Pennsylvania | South Carolina | Virginia

M-U Projects Potentially Impacted by NextEra/Dominion Merger
May 19, 2026May 19, 2026

Yesterday, MDN brought you the big news that NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy will combine in an all-stock transaction, creating the world’s largest regulated electric utility business serving approximately 10 million customer accounts across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina (see NextEra Energy Buying, Merging with Dominion Energy for $66 Billion). Now that the news itself has settled in, analysts are beginning to explore what it means for this constituency and that constituency. Whenever there’s a takeover with new management, existing (or planned) projects can change. We wondered, what’s the list of projects owned by Dominion and NextEra in the Marcellus/Utica region that may change when the two companies join? Read More “M-U Projects Potentially Impacted by NextEra/Dominion Merger”