SulphCo departing Sparks for a new home at Houston

SulphCo Inc. will move its headquarters and research operations from Sparks to Houston.

The publicly held company, which is developing a process to use ultrasound to remove sulfur from crude oil, said that it wants to be closer to the headquarters of major oil companies that may be among its customers.

Larry Ryan, SulphCo's president, said the company also needs to tap into the pool of chemical engineers, oil chemists and technical personnel available in Houston.

He said some of SulphCo's key personnel will relocate to Houston from Sparks, but the company didn't provide any specifics.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, SulphCo said it had 24 employees 22 of them fulltime.

The company is moving out of a 92,125-square-foot industrial building it leased at 850 Spice Island Drive. That lease expires at the end of May.

Ryan said SulphCo will maintain a small office in Reno. Scott Borgia, an office broker with CB Richard Ellis, said the company leased 4,100 square feet in the Nev-Dex Business Park on South Kietzke Lane.

The company began working on the sulfur-removal technology in 1999 and had run up losses of $70.8 million by the end of last year. It's never turned an annual profit.

The company was launched by Reno researcher Rudolf Gunnerman, who still controls 39 percent of its stock even though he was booted as the company's chairman and chief executive officer in January.

Ryan heads the new management team that took over after Gunnerman's departure.