Critical Analysis: Star Group (NYSE:SGU) & Sky Quarry (NASDAQ:SKYQ)

Star Group (NYSE:SGU) and Sky Quarry (NASDAQ:SKYQ) are both small-cap energy companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, valuation, earnings, risk, dividends and profitability.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and target prices for Star Group and Sky Quarry, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Star Group	0	1	0	0	2.00
Sky Quarry	1	0	0	0	1.00

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Star Group and Sky Quarry”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Star Group	$1.78 billion	0.24	$73.50 million	$1.87	6.93
Sky Quarry	$12.49 million	1.80	-$12.20 million	($2.73)	-0.93

Star Group has higher revenue and earnings than Sky Quarry. Sky Quarry is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Star Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

40.4% of Star Group shares are owned by institutional investors. 20.4% of Star Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 5.1% of Sky Quarry shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Volatility and Risk

Star Group has a beta of 0.31, suggesting that its share price is 69% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Sky Quarry has a beta of 2.17, suggesting that its share price is 117% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Star Group and Sky Quarry’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Star Group	4.57%	24.43%	8.39%
Sky Quarry	N/A	-232.60%	-59.42%

Summary

Star Group beats Sky Quarry on 10 of the 12 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Star Group

Star Group, L.P., together with its subsidiaries, provides home heating oil and propane products and services to residential and commercial customers in the United States. It offers gasoline and diesel fuel; and installs, maintain, and repairs heating and air conditioning equipment. As of September 30, 2023, the company served approximately 402,200 full service residential and commercial home heating oil and propane customers and 52,400 customers on a delivery only basis. It also sells gasoline and diesel fuel to approximately 26,600 customers. The company was formerly known as Star Gas Partners, L.P. and changed its name to Star Group, L.P. in October 2017. Star Group, L.P. was incorporated in 1995 and is based in Stamford, Connecticut.

About Sky Quarry

We are an oil production, refining, and a development-stage environmental remediation company formed to deploy technologies to facilitate the recycling of waste asphalt shingles and remediation of oil-saturated sands and soils. The recycling of asphalt shingles is expected to reduce the dependence on landfills for the removal of waste and to also reduce dependence on foreign and domestic virgin crude oil extraction for industrial uses. We have developed a process for separating oil from oily sands and other oil-bearing solids utilizing a proprietary solvent which we refer to as our ECOSolv technology or the ECOSolv process. The solvent is used in a closed-loop distillation and evaporation circuit which results in over 99% of the solvent being recoverable for continuous reuse and requires no water. The solvent has demonstrated oil separation rates of over 95% in bench testing using samples of both mined crushed ore and ground asphalt shingles. We intend to retrofit our PR Spring oil sands remediation facility, located in southeast Utah, to recycle waste asphalt shingles using our ECOSolv technology, and to produce and sell oil as well as asphalt paving aggregate mined from our bitumen deposit. We also plan to develop a modular asphalt shingle recycling facility (“ASR Facility”), which can be deployed in cities with high concentrations of waste asphalt shingles and near asphalt shingle manufacturing centers. We were incorporated in Delaware on June 4, 2019 as “Recoteq, Inc.” On April 22, 2020, we changed our name to “Sky Quarry Inc.”. Sky Quarry is a holding company and has no operations. The purpose of the holding company is to maintain ownership over our subsidiaries, create management efficiencies and establish an organizational structure to facilitate the potential acquisition of other businesses within or complementary to our industry. On September 16, 2020, we acquired 2020 Resources LLC. The assets of 2020 Resources include an oil sands remediation facility (the “PR Spring facility”) and a 100% interest in asphalt bitumen leases covering approximately 5,930 acres in the PR Spring region in Utah. On September 16, 2020, we also acquired 2020 Resources (Canada) Ltd, an entity which is currently inactive. On September 30, 2022, we acquired Foreland Refining Corporation, which is engaged in the refining of heavy crude oil into diesel and other petroleum products (naphtha, vacuum gas oil, and paving asphalt liquids) at its Eagle Springs Refinery located near Ely, Nevada. The acquisition of Foreland was immediately accretive to our revenues and cash flow and provides a strong base for growth. We believe the acquisition is a strategic fit and will form an important role in the future enabling us to vertically integrate the production and refining of oil from waste materials to energy in a sustainable and efficient manner. Sky Quarry Inc. 707 W. 700 S. Suite 101 Woods Cross, UT.