Rice Brothers
Editor's note: This profile is part of Hart Energy's 50th anniversary Hall of Fame series honoring industry pioneers of the past 50 years and the Agents of Change (ACEs) who are leading the energy sector into the future.
Growing up in Massachusetts, far from energy companies and oil and gas basins, the Rice brothers were heavily focused on sports. They seemed highly unlikely to become involved, let alone take leadership roles, in energy. But their father, a successful investor, told them about emerging opportunities in the Marcellus shale, and they decided to pursue it together.
Their combined efforts led them to found Rice Energy and build its Appalachian Basin holdings into a natural gas giant that EQT bought for $6.7 billion in 2017. The story could have ended there with an early retirement.
But Danny Rice said he and his brothers did not like the direction EQT took the company they built.
“We needed to restore it to what we always envisioned,” he told Hart Energy. “It [was] just cost spiraling out of control, not having good visibility with what business was doing from the top of the organization down to the lowest levels of the organization.”
Danny Rice led a proxy campaign that ended with Danny on the board and his brother, Toby Rice, as CEO.
“They’re young, but smart guys,” said Michael Scialla, an analyst at Stephens. “You’d be worried maybe about concerns about nepotism … but I think they’re pretty highly regarded as good managers.”
He said Toby Rice has led EQT to be more aggressive on acquisitions, including the recent Tug Hill acquisition that brings EQT quality infrastructure with lines that go to more favorable locations at cheaper costs.
Scialla also said the brothers are tireless champions of U.S. natural gas as a transition fuel. Toby Rice has pushed a campaign to “unleash” LNG with more pipelines getting the cleaner, cheaper fossil fuel to more customers.
Derek Rice, who has two degrees in geology and is a partner of Rice Investment Group, told Hart Energy that “the idea of going through the motions of investing in normal companies and making good returns just like every other private equity group [does not] really motivate us.”
He said he and his brothers are looking for business opportunities that will change the trajectory of energy.
The youngest brother, Ryan Rice, is a partner of Rice Investment Group and is CEO and founder of ResNet AI, an oil and gas production surveillance and intelligence platform.
Toby Rice said he and his brothers talk about once a week on these shared goals.
“I would say we are very aligned in what’s driving us right now. Because of the success we had with Rice Energy, money has not really been a driving factor for the brothers,” he told Hart Energy. “I think what's driving us is making an impact on this world. And for me, particularly, when I saw the correlation between energy consumption and human progress, the more energy people use, the better quality of life and the longer they live. That to me was like a light bulb that went off.”
—Hart Energy Staff