There is only one other company in the full-service sulphur handling business - Calgary-based Enersul Group - Martin said, so he is well situated to take advantage of the new regulations.

Sulphur must be transported in a hot liquid form and made into pellets because when it is refined out of petroleum it forms into a powder so volatile that it can be ignited by static electricity, similar to dust explosions in grain silos.

Devco also sells its pellet-making equipment to oil refiners so they can sell the neon-yellow coloured bits to fertiliser marketers.

"We work with all the San Francisco and Los Angeles-based refineries" including BP Amoco Plc and Chevron Corp. , said Martin, speaking at a global oil summit in Calgary.

Sulphur, a plant nutrient, is rare in some areas of the world. "There are still some places in the world where sulphur is mined," said Martin.

But it has long been the bane of oil refiners because of its existence in crude oil and oil products.

When gasoline burns in engines, sulphur comes out of tailpipes as sulphur dioxide, which combines with elements in the air to form volatile organic compounds that can cause acid rain and hurt sensitive lungs.

Public concern about sulphur getting into the atmosphere near refineries is so great that one refinery, at least, fields mistaken angry phone calls when springtime yellow pollen dusts windscreens near the plant, a community affairs official at a Philadelphia, Pa. refinery told Reuters.

Some refiners pump sulphur back into the ground, and biotechnology companies, such as Texas-based Enchira Biotechnolgy Corp. , are working on harnessing bacteria to "eat" sulphur out of crude.

But new low sulphur regulations on the books in Europe and North America that require much less sulphur in gasoline by mid-2000 should keep Devco well supplied, Martin said.

In Canada, where sulphur in gasoline averages 360 parts per million (PPM), proposed regulations call for gasoline with less than 30 PPM sulphur by 2005.

In the United States, where gasoline averages 340 PPM, the Environmental Protection Agency calls for Canada's standard of 30 PPM, to be phased in over several years beginning in 2004.

And European Union standards call for 50 PPM by 2005.