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 "At present about 10,000 tons of used tires are scrapped in Estonia every year, which is a big problem needing to be solved. At the same time, used tires are a good raw material for the production of oil," said Eesti Energia board member Margus Vals.

Previously producing oil from scrap tires has been tried with lab equipment at Tallinn University of Technology and at the Enefit140 oil plant of Eesti Energia.

"The earlier attempts have been encouraging, no changes in the quality of the product and aerial emissions have been registered," the Eesti Energia board member said.

He added that to obtain certainty, the company will now test production on an industrial scale, by adding up to 10% of shredded tires to oil shale.

"If the tests to be conducted at the Eesti Energia oil plant are successful and we become convinced that adding shredded tires to oil shale will not increase aerial emissions or affect the quality of the product, we will have the possibility to use all tires scrapped in Estonia for the production of oil in the future," Vals said.

Eesti Energia will conduct the tests at the Enefit140 plant at the end of this year, after obtaining necessary environmental permits.