TLDR
- Sky Quarry (SKYQ) surged 120% Thursday as Brent crude topped $112 per barrel, up over 50% year-to-date
- SKYQ operates Nevada’s only refinery, the Foreland Refinery, with ~5,000 barrels per day of capacity
- California refinery closures from Phillips 66 and Valero removed roughly 290,000 barrels per day of regional supply
- Nevada consumes over 300,000 barrels per day but has no other in-state refining capacity
- Sky Quarry is in talks with regional crude suppliers to boost local production feeding the refinery
Sky Quarry Inc. (SKYQ) is having quite a Thursday. The stock jumped 120% as a combination of surging oil prices and shrinking West Coast refining capacity put a spotlight on its Nevada refinery.
Brent crude settled at around $112 per barrel on March 30, a rise of more than 50% since January 1. The driver: conflict in the Middle East that effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz to most commercial shipping. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s March 10 outlook expects Brent to stay above $95 per barrel over the next two months.
That backdrop matters a lot for a company sitting on Nevada’s only operating refinery.
Sky Quarry’s Foreland Refinery has permitted capacity of approximately 5,000 barrels per day. It produces diesel, vacuum gas oil, naphtha, and liquid paving asphalt, using crude sourced from Nevada and Utah.
Nevada consumes more than 300,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. With no other in-state refining capacity, almost all of that fuel has to be trucked or piped in from neighboring states — primarily California.
California’s Refining Capacity Is Shrinking Fast
California’s refining picture has been deteriorating. Phillips 66 permanently shut its Wilmington refinery in Los Angeles at the end of 2025. Valero’s Benicia refinery is set to follow by mid-2026.
Combined, those two facilities represent around 290,000 barrels per day of capacity — roughly 18% of California’s total refining infrastructure, according to the Oil & Gas Journal and TankTerminals.com.
That puts pressure on fuel supply for the entire West, making the Foreland Refinery’s position more valuable by the day.
CEO Marcus Laun put it plainly: “Nevada is one of the most import-dependent fuel markets in the country.”
Sky Quarry posted $16.4 million in revenue over the last twelve months. However, the company has been burning through cash and carries a heavy debt load, which investors should weigh carefully.
Sky Quarry Eyes Supply Chain Expansion
The company is actively in talks with regional crude oil suppliers and leaseholders in Nevada to increase local production that could feed the refinery directly.
Sky Quarry also owns the PR Spring facility in eastern Utah. The site is designed to process asphaltic bitumen oil sands ore into heavy oil and holds an estimated 180 million barrels of asphaltic bitumen ore.
The PR Spring facility has two Solar Centaur Caterpillar Gensets with a combined 7 megawatts of generating capacity. Sky Quarry recently issued a Request for Proposals to explore commercial use of those power assets.
On the governance side, the company recently expanded its board and appointed three new independent directors — Omar Hussein, Alexander Monje, and Robert Byrne — to meet Nasdaq listing requirements for a majority independent board.
The stock is up 25% over the past week and 41.5% year-to-date heading into Thursday’s session.
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