Chrysotile asbestos was historically used in oil field exploration for drilling mud additives, products that were used to facilitate subsurface drilling operations. Some oil field workers have been identified as developing asbestos-related diseases from work using these mud additives.
To develop an understanding of the historic exposure risks to oil field workers, Ramboll analyzed nearly 1,200 pages of historic air monitoring reports related to the use of asbestos-containing drilling mud additives. From those reports we compiled a database, which provides a means to assess exposures by job title, task, location and number of bags handled. This data can be used to create job exposure matrices, assess various work scenarios and prepare reliable retrospective exposure assessments.
In support of cases involving oil field workers, Ramboll has developed reasonable estimates for worker and work zone asbestos concentrations under a variety of scenarios, enabling an understanding of historic exposure risk from the use of these asbestos-containing drilling mud additives.
Our work has also provided data that can be relied on for future epidemiological studies.