Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has agreed to buy the natural gas services company Copano Energy in an all-stock deal worth $3.2 billion.
Under the terms of the deal, which were announced late on Tuesday, Kinder Morgan will pay 0.4563 of its own shares for each share in Copano. The acquisition values each Copano share at $40.91, which represents roughly a 24 percent premium on the company’s closing share price on Tuesday.
Including debt, the deal is worth around $5 billion.
The move for Copano, which is based in Houston, is the latest deal is the U.S. oil and gas sector that has seen an influx of investment to take advantage of so-called unconventional energy resources like shale gas.
The energy deposits have been found from Wyoming to New York, and are extracted by a controversial technology called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that uses high-pressured water to remove oil nd gas reserves from shale rock formations.
‘‘We continue to be bullish on the domestic shale plays and believe they will drive substantial future growth,’’ Kinder Morgan’s chief executive, Richard D. Kinder, said in a statement.
Kinder Morgan has been actively acquiring assets to benefit from the American energy boom. In 2011, the company agreed to buy El Paso Corp. for $21.1 billion, though the company has been forced to make a number of disposals to appease antitrust regulators.
Copano operates almost 7,000 miles, or about 11,000 kilometers, of natural gas pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma and Wyoming. The private equity firm TPG, which is Copano’s largest shareholder, is supporting the deal, according to a statement from Kinder Morgan.
The deal for Copano is expected to clos! e in the third quarter of this year.
Citigroup and the law firms Weil Gotshal & Manges and Bracewell & Giuliani advised Kinder Morgan, while Barclays, Jefferies and the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz advised Copano.
