History
Sky Petroleum bought a shell in 2005, spent $25 million on a UAE oil field that ran dry, then drifted through unexploited Albanian licences and ventures that never started.
2005-2006: A shell becomes an oil company
Sky Petroleum began in April 2005 as a dormant Nevada shell called Seaside Exploration. Daniel Meyer bought a 54% stake for $7,000, and the company was renamed, split its shares 4-for-1 and said it would look for oil and gas deals. It had no petroleum assets at all.
Money came quickly. Four offshore investors put in $2.5 million at $0.50 a share, and in May subsidiary Sastaro agreed to fund $25 million of drilling on two wells in the Mubarek field offshore the UAE, operated by Buttes Gas and Oil International. Sky received no interest in the concession itself, only a share of what the wells produced.
The funding was tight from the start. In July Sky could not meet the first $5 million instalment on time, so it deferred half and borrowed $1.5 million on demand notes at 8%, then another $2.45 million, plus $1.37 million of shares at $0.80. A $7.1 million raise at $0.80 and an $11 million preferred placement at $3.60 in September cleared the debt, and in December 16 million shares at $1.00 raised $16 million. Total funds raised in 2005 came to roughly $37 million. Meyer handed back 12 million of his own shares for cancellation.
Management turned over fast. Donald Cameron was hired as chief executive in August and replaced in November by energy lawyer Brent Kinney. In June 2006 Meyer resigned as president and finance chief James Screaton was paid off.
2007-2009: Restatements and a dead field
Sky's reporting did not keep up with its deals. In May 2007 it told investors not to rely on its 2005 accounts, because shares issued to Paraskevi Investment for work on the Mubarek deal had been wrongly expensed rather than capitalised. In December a second restatement covered 2006 and the first half of 2007, over revenue recognition, depletion and cancelled options. Auditors changed repeatedly, ending with Whitley Penn. In September 2007 director Karim Jobanputra became chief executive, the fourth in just over two years.
The record for 2008 and 2009 is quiet. The Mubarek participation agreement was terminated at the end of 2009 when Buttes declared the field economically exhausted. Because Sky held only a revenue share, it had nothing to show for the drilling it had funded.
2010-2015: Albania and shrinking raisings
In May 2010 Sky hired British Virgin Islands consultant Orsett Ventures to find new ground, offering 3 million shares on a first qualifying deal. In June it signed a production sharing contract over Blocks Four, Five and Dumre in Albania, about 5,000 square kilometres, roughly a fifth of the country, with 1,200 km of existing seismic data. Albania's cabinet approved it in December, and Orsett was paid 3.86 million preferred and 1.5 million common shares.
Holding the licences cost money. In August 2011 Sky borrowed $1.5 million from Texas Citizens Bank solely to back Albania's performance guarantee, keeping 105% of it in cash at the bank. In October it sought $2 million at $0.25 a unit, a quarter of the 2005 price. Only $1 million was placed by January 2012, partly to its former chief executive, and another $500,000 came in May from OceanRidge Investments, controlled by a director and former chief executive. Shares on issue rose from about 58.8 million at the end of 2010 to 68.4 million by 2012.
The relationships frayed. Tobias Gondorf, an investment banker who became chief executive in late 2011, quit in July 2012 over disagreements with the board about strategy. In June 2012 Sky ordered its transfer agent to freeze the shares issued to Orsett. In January 2013 it borrowed $150,000 from director Mark Rachovides on an 8% note convertible at $0.25, and a year later it could not repay and extended it four months. Jobanputra returned as interim chief executive, finance chief and secretary.
A $400,000 raise at $0.05 a unit in May 2014 lifted shares on issue to about 76.5 million. In May 2015 a $500,000 two-year convertible note at $0.08 was the last real financing. No drilling in Albania was ever reported, and regular reporting stopped soon after.
2017-2023: Ventures that never started
After two silent years, Sky announced in April 2017 a contract to buy 5 million barrels of crude from the Benghazi-based National Oil Corporation in Libya, with no disclosed funding. In March 2019 it signed a second contract for 3 million barrels a month for two years. Nothing in the filings shows either produced a cargo.
In July 2021 Sastaro, the subsidiary created for the UAE interest, was repurposed for a joint venture supplying refurbished Black Hawk helicopters to Indonesia's defence ministry, a contract valued at $400-480 million. A South African fuels arrangement with Himmelhoch was also in place.
On 17 February 2023, both 2021 ventures, with Unity Accipiter and Himmelhoch, were mutually terminated before either began any activity. At that date Sky had no demonstrably operating assets, and it was unclear whether the Albanian contract had ever been relinquished.
Written from the 33 story beats below (2005 to 17 Feb 2023), which come from the company's own announcements and filings.