Clean-fuels assembly plant opens in Sparks

A company that developed a system to convert natural gas into liquid fuels for motor vehicles and industrial applications has begun operations at an equipment assembly plant in Sparks.

Among the first jobs to be assembled at the Advanced Refining Concepts LLC plant will be a production facility the company plans east of Sparks.

The assembly plant employs 15, and employment could grow to 50 by the time the facility is in full operation, said Peter Gunnerman, a co-founder of Advanced Refining Concepts.

Along with assembly and warehouse operations, the company plans to house its operations management team at the Sparks location as it grows.

The company signed a five-year lease on 53,000-square-foot facility at 960 United Circle.

"Our new facility will allow us to design and test lay-out an entire remote production facility prior to physically constructing it in the field," Gunnerman said.

The production facility east of Sparks, meanwhile, is expected to come on line by the end of the year. It's designed to produce 100,000 gallons a day of its fuel product.

The technology developed by Advanced Refining Concepts allows fuels converted from natural gas or biogas to be stored and delivered as a liquid through traditional service stations and other fuel providers.

The company's conversion system uses a low-temperature, low-pressure closed-loop catalytic process.

Gunnerman said the company sees a growing market for natural gas as a fuel because it's produced in the United States and delivers better performance with lower emissions than traditional fuels such as gasoline or diesel.

The company is focusing its initial production on a fuel branded as GDiesel that will sell at a price competitive to No. 2 diesel while delivering the performance of No. 1 diesel, Gunnerman said.

The company expects to buy many of the components that will be assembled at the Sparks plant from suppliers in northern Nevada and northern California, the company's co-founder said.

The privately held Advanced Refining Concepts LLC was launched by Gunnerman and his father, Rudolf, a longtime developer of fuels and refining technologies, early this year. The company has been financed entirely by the Gunnerman family.