Range Resources

In 1976, the company was founded as Lomak Petroleum, based in Hartville, Ohio. The company drilled wells in eastern Ohio.

In 1992, the company moved its headquarters to Fort Worth, Texas.

In 1997, the company acquired American Cometra for $385 million, which owned properties in the Permian Basin. It also acquired assets from Cabot Oil & Gas for $92.5 million.

In 1998, the company acquired Domain Energy for $214 million. The company also changed its name to Range Resources Corporation.

In 1999, the company formed a 50-50 joint venture with FirstEnergy called Great Lakes Energy Partners LLC to own properties in the Appalachian Basin. In 2004, the company bought the 50% interest in the venture that it did not own for $290 million, including the assumption of debt.

Before its major expansion into the Marcellus Shale, the company only held a small position in the Texas Barnett Shale and 9,000 "worn-out gas wells across the Appalachian basin that had been producing for 25 years". However, geologist William Zagorski, who worked for the company, used the knowledge of hydraulic fracturing gained working in the Barnett Shale (pioneered in the region by Mitchell Energy & Development) to attempt hydraulic fracturing in Appalachia, where according to CEO Jeffrey Ventura, "it worked on the first try".

In 2004, the company began operations in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

In 2005, the company built horizontal test wells in Mount Pleasant Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania and began production in the Marcellus Shale and in 2007, the company spent $200 million to acquire additional land nearby.

Legal issues

Property damage in Pennsylvania

In 2011, the company reached a $750,000 settlement with members of a Pennsylvania family that alleged their 10-acre farm had been destroyed by oil and gas development. Between 2011 and 2013, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sought to obtain court records related to the case. When a judge ordered records unsealed, the settlement agreement was initially not included in the 900 pages of records released. The agreement itself was released after the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Observer–Reporter sued to gain access. As part of the settlement, the family members agreed to a gag order preventing them from talking about hydraulic fracking for the rest of their lives. The gag order covered not just the adults, but also the children, then aged seven and ten years old.

Although the court transcript records an attorney for the company saying that the order applies to the children and that the company "would certainly enforce it", the general counsel of the company said otherwise after court records were unsealed. In a 2013 letter to the Hallowich's attorney that was also released to the media, the general counsel for the company said. "Range has never, at any time, had the intention of seeking to hold a minor child legally accountable for a breach of that provision of the settlement agreement." The lawyer for the Hallowich family said Range had waived the confidentiality of the agreement by releasing the letter to a cable network, and that the family would seek judicial remedy.

Royalty under-payments

In March 2011, the company settled a class-action lawsuit alleging that royalty payments to Pennsylvania landowners had been improperly reduced. The company paid $1.75 million and agreed to $20 million of changes in its program.

In 2013, the company settled for $87.5 million a class-action lawsuit alleging royalty underpayments on sales of natural gas in Oklahoma.