Asbestos Exposure in Refineries & Chemical Plants

Asbestos in the Refinery Industry

Oil refineries and chemical processing plants were among the most asbestos-intensive industrial environments in the United States. From the 1940s through the early 1980s, asbestos was the insulation material of choice in refineries because it could withstand the extreme temperatures, corrosive chemicals, and high pressures that define petrochemical processing. Every major refining operation — from crude distillation towers to catalytic crackers to hydrogen reformers — relied on asbestos-containing materials to function safely.

The sheer scale of asbestos use in refineries is difficult to overstate. A single refinery could contain hundreds of miles of insulated piping, thousands of flanged connections sealed with asbestos gaskets, and countless valves packed with asbestos rope. Boilers, heat exchangers, furnaces, reactors, and storage tanks were all wrapped in asbestos-containing thermal insulation. Refractory bricks lined with asbestos protected furnace walls and catalytic cracking units from temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), asbestos was used in refineries in the following applications:

• Pipe insulation — Asbestos blankets and wrapping covered miles of steam lines, process lines, and transfer piping throughout refinery complexes
• Valve packing — Asbestos rope and braided packing sealed gate valves, globe valves, and control valves to prevent leaks under high pressure
• Gaskets — Asbestos sheet gaskets and spiral-wound gaskets sealed flanged pipe connections, heat exchanger heads, and reactor vessels
• Refractory materials — Asbestos-containing refractory cement, bricks, and castable linings insulated furnaces, heaters, and catalytic cracking units
• Thermal insulation — Asbestos block, calcium silicate with asbestos, and asbestos cement covered boilers, tanks, vessels, and ductwork
• Fireproofing — Spray-applied asbestos fireproofing protected structural steel, pipe racks, and equipment supports throughout the refinery
• Pump and compressor packing — Asbestos packing rings sealed rotating equipment to prevent process fluid leaks
• Expansion joints — Asbestos fabric expansion joints absorbed thermal movement in hot piping systems

Workers were exposed to asbestos fibers every day — not only during major construction or demolition projects, but during routine maintenance tasks that required cutting, scraping, or disturbing asbestos-containing materials. Changing a gasket on a flanged connection, repacking a valve, or patching insulation on a steam line all generated airborne asbestos fibers in concentrations that far exceeded safe levels. In many refineries, asbestos debris accumulated on floors, walkways, and equipment surfaces, creating a persistent exposure hazard even for workers who were not directly handling asbestos materials.

The companies that manufactured and supplied asbestos products to refineries — including Johns-Manville, Owens-Corning, Eagle-Picher, Harbison-Walker, and others — knew that asbestos was dangerous to human health. Internal documents have shown that many of these companies were aware of the link between asbestos exposure and fatal diseases as early as the 1930s and 1940s, yet continued to sell their products without adequate warnings. This knowledge forms the basis of mesothelioma and lung cancer lawsuits filed on behalf of refinery workers and their families. For more about compensation options, see our dedicated page.

Turnaround & Maintenance Exposure

The single most dangerous asbestos exposure event in the refining industry was the turnaround — also called a shutdown, outage, or T/A. A turnaround is a planned maintenance event in which an entire refinery unit or process area is taken offline so that equipment can be inspected, repaired, cleaned, and recertified. Turnarounds occur on regular cycles (typically every 3 to 5 years per unit) and last anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks, depending on the scope of work.

During a turnaround, workers performed tasks that generated extraordinarily high concentrations of airborne asbestos fibers:

• Insulation stripping — Crews removed old asbestos insulation from miles of piping, vessels, heat exchangers, and boilers by hand, using knives, scrapers, and wire brushes. This work released clouds of asbestos dust in enclosed and semi-enclosed areas with limited ventilation.
• Gasket removal and replacement — Workers broke thousands of flanged connections to disassemble piping and equipment for inspection. Old asbestos gaskets were scraped from flange faces, generating fine asbestos particles that became airborne and settled on every surface.
• Refractory tearout — Asbestos-containing refractory linings inside furnaces, heaters, and reactors were chipped, jackhammered, and shoveled out, producing heavy dust in confined spaces.
• Valve and pump maintenance — Asbestos packing was removed from valves, pumps, and compressors and replaced with new packing — often also asbestos-containing until the 1980s.
• Re-insulation — After repairs were completed, new insulation was cut, shaped, and applied. Even replacement insulation materials often contained asbestos well into the 1970s.

Turnaround crews typically worked 12-hour shifts, 7 days a week for the duration of the shutdown. Many turnaround workers were contract employees brought in from across the region specifically for the event. These workers rotated through multiple refineries each year, each turnaround adding to their cumulative asbestos exposure. The combination of high fiber concentrations, long work hours, confined spaces, and inadequate respiratory protection made turnaround work one of the most hazardous occupational asbestos exposure scenarios documented.