QUINCY, Ill.—Titan International Inc. is entering the tire reclaiming business with a joint venture Titan CEO Maurice Taylor Jr. claims can generate $250 million or more a year in revenue from the sale of reclaimed oil, carbon black and steel.
Titan Mining Services business has started Titan Tire Reclamation Corp., a partnership with Green Carbon L.L.C., which is part of Rome, Ga.-based OTR Wheel Engineering Ltd.
Green Carbon has developed a reclamation process Titan claims is capable of handling mining tires and conveyor belting.
Taylor said the joint venture's system can accommodate tires in sizes up to 59R63, and each of these size tires yields 450 to 500 gallons of oil, approximately 4,000 pounds of carbon black and about one ton of steel, all of which can be sold.
Fred Taylor, Maurice Taylor's brother, heads up OTR Wheel.
Maurice Taylor claims the business could generate earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and debt of $75 million to $100 million gross.
In addition, Titan and/or OTR Wheel can accrue carbon credits, depending on the country, allowing Titan to market its products as green carbon certified, Taylor said.
A key to the system is its portability, since the recycling needs to be brought to the mining company sites where the used tires accumulate. To this end, Titan plans to set up recycling units in Alberta and British Columbia initially, and then in Elko, Nev.; Gillette, Wyo.; and sites in Chile and Australia.
Titan Mining Services plans to find an equity owner or owners for each operating facility, Taylor said.
Fred Taylor describes Green Carbon's technology as distinct from pyrolysis since it creates carbon black that can be incorporated into tire manufacturing.
The Green Carbon recycling process also creates a gas from scrap tires that generates 88 percent of the energy the process needs, Fred Taylor said at the 2012 Rubber Recycling Symposium in Toronto. Including the carbon black and oil, the process creates eight times more energy than it consumes, he said.