If you own oil or gas driller that hasn’t lost you money since February 2014, you did something right. The broadest proxy for U.S. energy producers, an ETF with the ticker XOP, is down 44% since the middle of that month.

So we feel fortunate to be down just 2% over the same span on Aggressive Portfolio recommendation Rice Energy (NYSE: RICE), though not as fortunate as it felt to be up 15% two weeks ago.

Shares of all of the drillers focused on natural gas (and as a consequence concentrated primarily in Appalachia’s Marcellus Shale) have taken it on the chin the last two weeks, even as natural gas prices hit a 22-month high before retreating.

It didn’t help that the count of active natural gas rigs increased the most in two years during the second week of October, or to have local prices in the Northeast average less than $1 per million British thermal units, roughly one-third of those at the Henry Hub, the NYMEX-traded U.S. natural gas benchmark.

But Appalachian producers have dealt with such challenges all along, and the recent pullback won’t undermine their exceptional long-term prospects. Rather it gives us another opportunity to recommend buying Rice, the region’s best growth story.

In fact, this one got just got even better last month when Rice unveiled the $2.7 billion acquisition of privately held Vantage Energy, a deal that just closed.

The leaseholds held by Vantage in the liquids-rich core of the Marcellus natural gas shale basin were more valuable to Rice than anyone else — including their previous owners. To see why, start with the map of the Rice acreage and the additional territory it’s just acquired.

Source: Rice Energy

As you can see, they’re highly complementary. That will allow Rice to maximize output while holding down well and pipeline costs.

The deal increased Rice’s acreage by 56% and its potential drilling locations by 65%, providing years of additional growth runway. Crucially, Vantage’s 72 producing Marcellus wells have proven just as bountiful as Rice’s, which have been among the industry’s most lucrative.

Source: Rice Energy

At recent futures strip prices, Rice’s wells have produced at internal rates of return near 100%, rich even by the inflated standards of such projections from energy producers. And because Vantage was a couple of years behind Rice in developing its turf the combined company is expected to grow that much faster, increasing its production 70% next year from the two companies’ aggregate 2016 output.

Rice has hedged all of its of its 4Q16 output and two-thirds of next year’s production at a minimum prices a bit below $3/MMBtu.

Better still, nearly $2 billion of the $2.7 billion purchase price was financed with equity, with $1 billion raised from a RICE equity offering and another $980 million in stock issued directly to the Vantage sellers. Rice’s sponsored Rice Midstream Partners (NYSE: RMP) MLP contributed $600 million in stock and debt in exchange for Vantage’s midstream infrastructure. That’s left Rice with plenty of liquidity to quickly exploit its expanded footprint.

In fact, its improved credit profile as a result of using mostly equity to cover the deal’s price tag won Rice credit upgrades from Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s this week.  

With natural gas trading barely above the level needed to incentivize production growth nationwide, the market has been placing a premium on growth stories like Rice, and in fact its shares have handily outperformed those of other gas-focused drillers since the summer.

We expect the share price to turn up alongside a seasonal uplift in natural gas prices later this fall. Quarterly results scheduled for Nov. 3 could provide another catalyst. Buy Aggressive pick RICE below $29.