The refinery I worked for had just installed a vacuum fractionator to clip the light ends of our resid which was barely 150 flash. The fraction was about 500 bbls/day and had many of the properties of rubber processing oil, except that it was heavier.
We thought one of the smaller tire companies might have interest but none showed interest unless we made an exact duplicate to the existing line.
Surprisingly, the Good Year lab in Akron tried a tank car of the stuff, manufactured tires with it and ran a 100,000 mile test on a taxi fleet with good results.
When we got down to the factory level, another objection was raised because our oil wasn’t exactly like the Exxon product. The fraction was then moved into oil well workover line and this was a success in Canada. We soon discovered that the product was “hot” and could cause skin injury. The 500 bbls/day was then dumped into the N2 pool and it disappeared as fuel.
The tire study was of some use as we identified an industry we wanted nothing to do with...
Tire makers have to deal with the DOT.
Rubber compounders tend to be Luddites as well. It is aggravating developing stuff that works in production AND products. Goodyear was probably the only company around who had the research capacity to pull it off, and the production end killed it.
If you still have that stuff, contact some industrial products makers.