EQTNYSEThe short version
EQT Corporation
EQT is the largest natural-gas producer in America, an Appalachian driller that pumps about 6% of the nation's gas and sells every molecule at a market price it does not set.
A three-decade climb from under $5 to a March 2026 record of $67.93, then a 28% slide to $48.85 and a partial recovery to $53.29.
Mkt cap $32.8BNet debt $5.5BEV $38.4BP/E FY27E 12.2×ND/EBITDA FY25 0.9×
$53.29
Share price, Jul 31 2026
$32.8B
Market cap
5.6%
Adjusted FCF yield
3.7×
Rise in share count since 2016
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Snapshot
EQT Corporation in numbers
Price
$53.29as of 2026-07-31
Mkt cap
$32.8B
Net debt
$5.5B
EV
$38.4B
12m perf
−0.9%
3m ADV
$374.2M
| Year to Dec (USD) | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026E | 2027E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sales | 5.0B | – | – | 9.4B | 9.3B |
| EBITDA | 4.0B | 2.8B | 5.9B | – | – |
| EBIT | 2.3B | 685.3M | 3.2B | – | – |
| EPS | – | – | – | 4.15 | 4.38 |
| EV/EBITDA | 9.5× | 13.5× | 6.6× | – | – |
| EV/EBIT | 16.6× | 56.0× | 11.8× | – | – |
| P/E | – | – | – | 12.8× | 12.2× |
| FCF yield | 3.5% | 1.7% | 8.6% | – | – |
| Gearing | 38.7% | 44.3% | 32.4% | – | – |
Consensus: Yahoo Finance analyst estimatesDerived from run data; ratios use the latest price.
IThe business
What EQT is
America's largest gas producer, earning a spread it controls only on the cost side
FY2025 segment operating income ($M)
Upstream$2,318M66%
Gathering$837M24%
Transmission$375M11%
About three-quarters of gathering volume is EQT's own gas — midstream is a cost lever, not a separate business.
- The spread. EQT pulls gas out of Appalachia at low cost, moves it through its own pipes, and sells at the market price. A move to $3.24/Mcfe (+47%) in 2025 swung operating income from $685M to $3,250M.
- Scale. Roughly 6.5 Bcfe a day and 28 Tcfe of proved reserves, 93% in the Marcellus — the largest natural-gas producer in the United States.
- Integrated. Since the 2024 Equitrans deal EQT owns the gathering and transmission lines it once rented, lowering its free-cash-flow breakeven.
The commodity
Revenue is volume times a price EQT cannot set — and it can halve in a year
Sales of natural gas, NGLs and oil ($M)
Revenue tracks the gas strip, not a decision made inside the company.
- Price-taker. At about 6% of US output in a fragmented field, EQT sets the price of nothing it sells; it typically receives market-based pricing at a structurally negative Appalachian basis.
- Violent cycles. Gas sales swung from $12.1B in 2022 to $5.0B in 2023, a 58% fall, then recovered — the company controls its costs, not its revenue.
- No moat over the market. There is no monopoly or duopoly to point to; durability has to rest on low-cost scale and reserves, not pricing power.
How it got here
EQT bought its way to number one, and paid mostly in its own stock
Scale by acquisition
| Deal | Closed | EQT shares issued |
|---|---|---|
| Rice Energy | 2017 | Became #1 US producer |
| Tug Hill / XcL | Aug 2023 | 49.6M |
| Equitrans Midstream | Jul 2024 | 152.4M ($5.5B) |
| Olympus Energy | Jul 2025 | 25.2M (~$1.5B) |
- Stock-funded roll-up. Three deals since 2023 issued roughly 227M new shares — the reason a company with ~$8.6B of gas sales carries a ~$33B equity value.
- Share count. Shares outstanding rose from 167M in 2016 to 616M in 2025, a 3.7× increase compounding near 19% a year over the last five.
Whether that engine can reverse into buybacks is the framework's central capital-allocation question.
IIIThe story now
The fit
Does not fit the framework (P1 not met)
Not met
Year-10 durability gate (P1)
5.6%
Adjusted FCF yield vs 10% bar
0.71
Probability the damage is temporary
Medium
Confidence in the read
- The gate decides it. The one pure gate asks whether 2036 revenue and cash flow will both be higher, with very high conviction. Volume clears; the price leg does not — a price-taker with no market-structure moat leaves genuine doubt, and the gate is binary (probability 0.53).
- The other side. Production is rising, 4.5 MTPA of LNG offtake is signed for 2030-31, and integrated midstream defended a record $2.84B of free cash flow in 2025 — if gas merely holds near mid-cycle, both legs clear.
- Nothing excluded, nothing contested. EQT clears the universe and trips no exclusion; no criterion resolved contested or cannot-determine. The read turns on the gate alone.
Year-10 test
Thirty years of gas in the ground, sold at a price no one at EQT controls
The year-10 gate, leg by leg
| Leg | Reading |
|---|---|
| Volume | 28 Tcfe proved, ~30 yrs inventory; output up 2,016→2,382 Bcfe |
| Price | Price-taker at ~6% of US output; realized $2.65–9.86/MMBtu in 2025 |
| Structure | No monopoly or duopoly; Expand Energy claims the top title too |
| Gate | Not met — genuine doubt on the price leg |
- The credible leg. Reserves and inventory are real: 28 Tcfe proved, 93% Marcellus, roughly three decades of drilling, production rising three years running.
- The doubtful leg. Revenue equals that volume times a commodity price EQT says it is unable to predict; that price drove revenue from $12.1B (2022) to $5.0B (2023).
- Why it gates. This is binary by construction — any proper doubt means the framework sets the name aside, whatever the other pillars say.
The drawdown
A 28% fall from a record high — but no event, and no capitulation
EQT close, Jan–Jul 2026 ($)
Peak $67.93 on 25 Mar, trough $48.85 on 10 Jul, back to $53.29.
- No trigger. Q1 2026 was a record — $1.83B of free cash flow and an 11% EPS beat — while the stock fell. The slide tracked a softer gas strip ($2.89/MMBtu in Q2), not a guidance cut or shock.
- No capitulation. Peak 20-day volume ran at 0.98× the pre-peak median and the busiest single session only 1.64× — orderly repricing, not a wash-out.
- Round-trip. EQT opened 2026 near $53 and sits near $53 now; the 28% figure exists because the peak was a transient winter record.
Damage math
The price erased about $9B; the arithmetic can only account for $3.6B
Value destroyed vs plausible NPV damage ($B)
10% discount rate, no terminal growth; permanent case midpoint shown.
- The gap. A probability-weighted DCF-lite puts real value destroyed near $3.6B against ~$9B of lost market cap — a ~$5.4B gap, about 16% of the market cap.
- The condition. That gap exists only while the trial's 0.71-temporary reading holds; at the permanent high anchor the price move equals the value move and the gap closes.
- The permanent core. One damage is price-independent: proved reserves per diluted share fell 32%, from 66.8 to 45.6 Mcfe, as shares rose with no buybacks.
Self-help
The buyback flywheel runs backwards: shares up 3.7×, buybacks near zero
3.7×
Share count, 2016 to 2025
$622M
Total buybacks since 2021
$0
Buybacks in 2024 and 2025
- Engine in reverse. Shares rose from 167M (2016) to 616M (2025) on all-stock deals, while cumulative buybacks since 2021 were just $622M and zero in both 2024 and 2025 — the framework's share-count rule fails outright.
- Stated, not shown. Management now frames aggressive countercyclical buybacks as its next lever, willing to hold up to a few billion dollars of cash — but the framework rewards a demonstrated habit, not an intention.
- Can outlast, not forced. Investment-grade, a $3.5B undrawn revolver, no year over $1.65B in maturities — capacity is not the issue; through the cycle capital went to debt paydown, not repurchases.
The clock
What re-rates EQT is the gas price — and the gas price has no date
Re-rating calendar
| Mechanism | Window |
|---|---|
| Winter 2026-27 storage draws set the strip | Nov 2026–Mar 2027 |
| Q3 print shows raised guidance | Oct 20, 2026 |
| Southeast utility supply deals begin | Late 2027–2028 |
| LNG offtake cash flow, larger portfolio | 2028–2030 |
| CPV Shay 2-GW power plant in service | Early 2031 |
- Cyclical, not scheduled. The gap to the ~$67 analyst mean closes mostly on Henry Hub, which turns on weather and supply — a bounce is plausible in 18-24 months but cannot be dated.
- Structural is late-decade. The LNG, power and data-center demand wave management leans on is a 2028-2031 story, and the futures curve is not pricing it yet.
- Base rates. In the post-2020 era EQT ran four 28-43% drawdowns that repaired in roughly 3 to 28 months, set by the gas cycle; this 28% episode is the shallowest.
IVThe price
The yield
On adjusted cash flow the yield is 5.6% — short of the 10% bar
Adjusted FCF yield vs the 10% line
3-yr avg adjusted
1.6%
FY2025 adjusted
5.6%
Mid-cycle adjusted
6.5%
Consensus FY2028 adjusted
10.7%
- The adjustment. On adjusted FCF — reported cash flow less stock comp less a 5-year average of acquisitions — FY2025 yields 5.6% and the three-year average 1.6%: 440 and 840 bps short of the line.
- Which bar. Net debt near 1.3× EBITDA puts EQT in the moderate band, so the 10% default line applies — not the softer 8-9% fortress line where the 8.6% reported yield would nearly clear.
- The path. On the adjusted basis consensus reaches the bar only around FY2028, as the 2021-24 acquisition wave rolls off — and only if EQT stops making large cash deals, which it has not.
What you pay
At $53 the price already embeds mid-cycle cash with no growth
$33.0B
No-growth value of mid-cycle FCF
$32.8B
Current market cap
~11.6 yrs
FCF to retire the float (not ~3)
- Priced for mid-cycle. Capitalizing ~$3.3B of normalized FCF at 10% with no growth gives $33.0B — essentially today's $32.8B market cap. The price already assumes mid-cycle cash and no growth.
- No absurdity. The whole float takes ~11.6 years of reported FCF to retire, not the ~3 years that signals a price making a claim it cannot survive.
- A 3x isn't supported. The framework's re-rating math can't be computed (adjusted FCF inputs missing); with the entry yield below the bar and a mild dislocation, a framework-style trebling has no arithmetic behind it.
Two ways to read it
Wall Street sees $67; the framework sees a yield below its line
Analyst price targets vs the $53.29 close
Low target
$52
Close
$53.3
Mean target
$67.1
High target
$81
- The sell side isn't capitulated. Twenty-five analysts carry a $67.08 mean target, 26% above the close, with 20 buys and no sells — the opposite of the fear the framework hunts.
- Consensus cash is rising. Forward FCF yield runs 9.5% (2026) to 11.7% (2028) on today's market cap; the sell side sees the cash the price is discounting.
- The framework's read. On its own adjusted-yield line the name sits below the bar, the dislocation lacks a trigger and capitulation, and the gate is unmet — cheap-looking, but set aside.
What to watch
The business will likely outlast the decade; the framework sets it aside on year-10 conviction, not on price
- 01Henry Hub sustains <$2.50/MMBtu through 2027-2028 despite the LNG/data-center demand ramp
- 02FY2026-27 realized FCF lands materially below ~$3.1B consensus
- 03Diluted shares stay above 600M through FY2027 with no material buybacks
- 04FY2026-27 10-K books a property impairment or negative proved-reserve/PUD revisions
This distills a fixed fit test built tab by tab; the full report shows every number in context.
Compiled from the full report · 2026-08-02 · For information, not investment advice.