S&P Global Ratings recently raised its near-term crude oil and natural gas price assumptions. We now anticipate credit measures will be better than our prior expectations for Range Resources Corp., a U.S.-based oil and gas exploration and production (E&P) company. The company has also decreased its debt and we expect additional debt paydown by year-end. Therefore, we raised our issuer credit rating on Range to 'BB' from 'BB-'. At the same time, we raised our issue-level rating on the company's senior unsecured debt to 'BB' from 'BB-' (recovery rating: '3'). The stable outlook reflects our expectations that funds from operations (FFO) to debt will average significantly above 100% for the next two years with strong free cash flow generation. Our
