Product Description
Universal Oil Products (UOP; Des Plaines, IL) allegedly licensed and engineered the two dominant refinery alkylation technologies of the mid-twentieth century — hydrofluoric acid (HF) alkylation and sulfuric acid alkylation — to produce high-octane gasoline blendstock. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that UOP’s process-flow-diagram and materials-of-construction specifications for alkylation units called for compressed asbestos fiber (CAF) sheet gaskets and asbestos-filled spiral-wound gaskets at the raised-face flange joints throughout the unit — including isostripper reboiler channel flanges, deisobutanizer column head flanges, HF settler manways, and shell-and-tube heat-exchanger flange faces.
Because alkylation units operate under corrosive HF or H2SO4 service at elevated temperature, plaintiffs alleged that asbestos-filled gaskets were the specified material of construction well into the 1980s.
Workers Exposed
Plaintiffs allegedly identified the following trades as exposed during UOP-engineered alkylation unit turnaround and construction:
- Refinery pipefitters breaking out and re-gasketing process-piping flanges at unit tear-down.
- Boilermakers pulling channel covers on shell-and-tube exchangers and cutting replacement gasket blanks.
- Refinery millwrights rebuilding pumps and compressors integrated into the alkylation flow-sheet.
- Refinery insulators stripping calcium silicate lagging back to flange faces before boilermaker work.
Alleged exposure mechanisms included chiseling and wire-brushing dry gasket residue from raised-face flanges in tented turnaround areas, cutting CAF sheet stock on the deck plate, and installing pre-cut spiral-wound rings.