Alaska Pipeline Workers Encounter Asbestos

August 24, 2006 - More than 200 workers stripping insulation from troubled BP Oil pipelines in Prudhoe Bay may have been exposed to asbestos, notes Alaska’s state labor board. 

Men working on the pipes, which were shut down on August 6th due to problems with corrosion and leaks, may have encountered asbestos in the tar-like resin between the insulation and the pipe, said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo.

The Anchorage Daily News reports that nearly 200 workers have been conquering the task of insulation stripping and corrosion testing.  Most of them are employed by Anchorage-based Veco Corp. and the Canadian firm Acuren.  The workers are trying to make way for testing the steel pipes for holes using sound-wave devices.  The above ground pipes found at the Prudhoe Bay site, the article points out, are wrapped in insulation to prevent hot crude oil from thawing the permafrost.

“The asbestos-infused resin is present only on pipelines in the western half of Prudhoe,” Beaudo said. According to BP officials, a different company built and ran the eastern side before BP took control of the full field in 2000, and pipelines on that side don't have the resin.

Reports show that the resin has an asbestos content of 5 percent to 10 percent, Beaudo said. He added that the asbestos is not friable, meaning it doesn't easily break up and cause airborne fibers, which can be inhaled by workers.

However, notes Steve Standley, acting chief of enforcement for the Alaska Occupational Safety & Health office, non-friable asbestos can indeed become dangerous if handled aggressively.  That may be the case at Prudhoe Bay, he says, where the men “use lots of muscle power to peel off the insulation and resin and then buff the pipe to prepare for a good sonic corrosion test.”