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Range Resources Corporation
Range Resources is an oil and gas company that pulls natural gas, natural gas liquids, and oil out of the ground and sells them to utilities, marketers, processors, and refiners.
Range Resources is one of the big independent natural gas producers in the United States. It doesn't drill for oil in the Middle East or operate gas stations. Instead, it owns leases on land, largely in the Appalachian region of Pennsylvania, and it drills wells to pull natural gas, natural gas liquids (NGLs, which are things like propane and butane), and a smaller amount of oil out of the rocks deep underground. It then sells those raw products to utilities that burn gas to make electricity, to marketers and processors that move and treat the gas, and to refiners.
The company's heart is in the Marcellus Shale, a huge layer of gas-rich rock that stretches across Pennsylvania and nearby states. Range was one of the earliest big players to bet on the Marcellus, and that bet paid off: the rock is close to major population centers and pipelines in the Northeast, which keeps shipping costs low. That location is Range's real edge — it can get its gas to big East Coast markets more cheaply than producers shipping from Texas or the Gulf. It also owns and operates much of its own gathering and processing infrastructure, the pipes and plants that turn raw wellhead gas into something utilities can actually use. The catch is that natural gas is a commodity. Range doesn't set the price; the market does, and the market can be brutal. When gas prices spike, the company makes a fortune. When they crash, as they did in 2020 and again in early 2024, the business bleeds. That swings profit and cash flow wildly from year to year. Range tries to soften the blows by selling some of its future production in advance through hedging, essentially locking in a price today for gas it will deliver later, and by keeping a relatively clean balance sheet so it can survive the down years.
Range Resources was formerly called Lomak Petroleum, a name it used until it rebranded in 1998 to reflect its shift toward bigger, more resource-focused plays. Today it is a steady mid-size producer rather than a high-growth story. It spends money drilling new wells and maintaining its base of production, and it has returned cash to shareholders through a small dividend and share buybacks. Its fortunes rise and fall with the price of natural gas, which makes it a simple business to understand and a difficult one to predict.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026