Sumitomo Rubber Industries Ltd, Japan's second-biggest tyre maker, plans to start selling in Japan tyres that include no petrochemical materials by 2013, a company spokesman said yesterday.

The company has set a medium-term strategy to fight climate change by introducing a tyre which uses as little raw material made from oil as possible and at the same time that spins more smoothly to save more fuel than a conventional tyre.

In June, Sumitomo Rubber launched in Japan tyres in which petrochemicals account for three per cent of raw materials, compared with 56 per cent of its ordinary tyres. The remaining 97 per cent consists of oil-free materials such as steel wires, vegetable oil, fibres from plant cellulose and natural rubber.

Its price is more than 30 per cent higher than that of an ordinary tyre.

"How to produce the remaining three-per cent part from other natural resources but oil is now under development," the spokesman Ryota Senshu said. The remaining additives currently made from petrochemical materials are used to protect tyres from aging and for other purposes, he said. The company, with overseas tyre brands that include Falken, plans to sell 20,000 units of the 97 per cent oil-free tyre in the 12 months from June, and its sales of the tyre, Enasave, have so far been in line with the plan, Mr Senshu said.