Greka Energy

Greka

Type	Private
Industry	Oil and petroleum extraction and refining Mining
Founded	1999 (Saba; Horizontal Ventures)
Headquarters	Santa Maria, California, U.S.
Area served	Central California; other related operations in China as Green Dragon Gas
Key people	Randeep Grewal (Owner and CEO), Andrew DeVegvar (President), Susan Whalen (Sr. Vice President and General Counsel)
Products	Oil Petroleum Asphalt Emulsion
Number of employees	200 - June 2009
Subsidiaries	Greka Oil & Gas, Alexi Realty, Santa Maria Refining Company, Greka Integrated Inc., Rincon Island Limited Partnership

Greka Energy, currently also known as HVI Cat Canyon Inc. is a private United States oil and gas company operating principally in southern and central California, centered on Santa Barbara County. Formed in 1999 after acquisition and merger of several smaller firms, it is a subsidiary of Greka Integrated, Inc., a holding company headquartered in Santa Maria, California, and is wholly owned by Randeep Grewal. The United States operations of Greka consist of four units: Greka Oil & Gas, Alexi Realty, Santa Maria Refining Company, and Rincon Island Limited Partnership. They focus on petroleum extraction and asphalt processing in California, with holdings in Santa Barbara, Ventura, Kern, and Orange Counties. As of 2009, they had approximately 200 employees, and were the largest onshore oil operator in Santa Barbara County. In May 2011, Greka changed its name to HVI Cat Canyon Inc.

In addition to its United States operations, Grewal runs further Greka operations in China, including Green Dragon Gas, which is a publicly traded company (GDG on the London Stock Exchange), and of which Grewal owns a controlling interest. Green Dragon Gas was incorporated in 2006 in Hong Kong, and mainly extracts coal bed methane in China. It is a part of Greka Energy International, B.V., a Netherlands Company headquartered in the Cayman Islands. While Grewal owns both a controlling interest in Green Dragon, and all of Greka Energy in California, and the two companies use the same logo, as of 2009 the two companies are separate legal entities.

The oldest component firm making up Greka, Saba Enterprises, was founded in 1981. Greka itself was originally named Kiwi III, Ltd, and was created as a Colorado corporation in 1988. This firm, renamed to Petro Union, Inc., filed for bankruptcy in 1996. In 1999, Randeep Grewal, the current owner of the Greka companies, acquired the assets of Saba Petroleum, changing the company's name to Greka; and previously in 1998, with his newly purchased Horizontal Ventures, which was then a private entity, he acquired the assets of Petro Union, which was just then emerging from its 1996 bankruptcy filing in Indiana. Grewal formed Greka Energy by combining these various entities in 1999.

In an October 2000 interview with Wall Street Transcript, Randeep Grewal stated that the company's motto was "Working for Profits": "...[these] are the three words that define what keeps me excited and that's primarily what each of my employees and I focus on. Being profitable drives every decision we make, hence our company’s slogan 'Working for Profits.'" While a publicly traded firm, Greka continued to grow, acquiring Windsor Energy US Corporation and Rincon Island Limited Partnership in 2002, thereby adding Rincon Island in Ventura County to their portfolio; and in that same year they acquired the properties of Vintage Petroleum in northern Santa Barbara County, which included about 110 producing wells on portions of five oil fields, principally in the Santa Maria Valley and the surrounding hills.