EQT Corporation

EQT Corporation drills for natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Appalachia and then moves that gas through its own gathering pipes directly to Transco and Texas Eastern, the two main interstate pipelines that carry gas to buyers in the Northeast and Southeast. Because EQT built those gathering connections alongside its wellheads, its gas reaches premium markets without competing for the scarce capacity slots that strand other Appalachian producers inside the basin during peak winter demand — and third-party producers whose acreage touches the same network have to pay EQT access fees to use that same exit path, which layers a midstream fee income on top of commodity sales. Utility customers who sign long-term contracts get both the gas supply and a reserved spot on the gathering system bundled into one agreement, so switching suppliers means untangling the commodity deal and the transportation arrangement simultaneously while also figuring out how to physically reroute wellhead connections that are already in the ground. The whole structure depends on those specific Transco and Texas Eastern delivery points staying open — if federal permitting authorities curtailed capacity at those interconnects, gathered gas would have nowhere to go and both the commodity margins and the third-party fees would collapse at once.