Press Release

Osaka, Japan - December 19, 2016 - Toyo Tire & Rubber Co., Ltd. (Takashi Shimizu, President) announces that the Sendai plant in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, will begin facilitating the switch from thermal energy sources utilized at the automobile tire manufacturing base, i.e., coal and fuel oil, to natural gas.

The Sendai plant has been the company’s manufacturing base for automobile tires since 1962 and has continued operations there for more than half a century. Until now, the plant has utilized the burning of coal and used tires to produce thermal energy for tire manufacturing, and fuel oil combustion for the cogeneration boiler that supplies needed steam and electricity throughout the plant.

(Toyo Tires Sendai plant and production machinery at Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture)

Japan Petroleum Exploration Co., Ltd. (Hideichi Okada, President and Chief Executive Officer) has designed a plan to lay a gas pipeline² from Soma LNG¹ Terminal (Shinchi, Fukushima) to Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, and to construct a natural gas infrastructure that includes the plant area. Toyo Tires has decided to take this opportunity to install highly efficient natural-gas-fired gas turbines with high heat recovery capacities that can supply thermal power to each of the facilities at the plant. (1 - Liquefied natural gas, 2 - Plans are to complete construction by the end of 2017 and begin operations in 2018.)

The burning of natural gas produces none of the SOx (sulfur oxides) that cause air pollution and acid rain, and emits little of the harmful gases such as the greenhouse gas CO₂ and NOx (nitrogen oxides), which significantly contributes to photochemical smog. It also allows for the suppression of gypsum sludge, fly ash, and various other such waste by-products.

In light of global environmental protection, corporations are being prompted to step-up their efforts toward realizing a low-carbon society in which greenhouse gases are reduced to amounts capable of being absorbed by nature. Toyo Tires has set as a goal a "15% reduction (compared to 2005) by 2020" of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions at domestic manufacturing bases, and are undertaking various initiatives at each base. (3 – Units of direct carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions)   

(Reference)
[Outline of New Natural Gas Turbine Cogeneration System]
The natural-gas-fired gas turbine cogeneration system to be installed by Toyo Tires:
ž・Runs by way of turbines (rotors with numerous blades attached to disks) that are driven by high temperature
    and high pressure exhaust gas emitted from the continual burning of natural gas with compressed air.
・žThe torque of the turbines produces electric power that is supplied to the plant as needed.
ž・The hot exhaust gas from spinning turbines is sent to a heat recovery steam generator to generate steam.
ž・The steam is sent via piping within the factory to tire production equipment (vulcanizer) and elsewhere.
ž・Furthermore, the exhaust gas that is the waste heat from producing steam heats the water supplied to the
    heat recovery steam generator through a residual heat recovery device called an economizer.
ž・The heated boiler feed water supply is thereby raised to 161 degrees Celsius before it is sent to the heat  
    recovery steam generator, increasing the thermal efficiency of the device, and promoting even higher 
    thermal efficiency than ever before.

■Natural gas cogeneration system (image)
■Example of working facility: Provided by Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co., Ltd.