Mobil Chemical Co

Mobil Chemical Company was the chemical business of the Mobil oil company. Our documents name it as the seller of Asgum roof coating and a line of Dum Dum caulks, sealers and fillers, as a Union Carbide customer for Calidria asbestos at Edison, New Jersey, and Kankakee, Illinois, and as the owner of a Beaumont, Texas, plant where insulators worked. The library holds no record of a bankruptcy or trust for it.

Draft. The history on this page was written from the documents in our library and has not yet been reviewed by a person.

Products

A label for a 5-gallon pail of Asgum Roof Coating, Plastic Black 35-J-14, carries the Mobil logo, a warning panel and directions for use.⁶ Our catalog dates the label 1923, the date the U.S. Patent Office trademark file gives, on Mobil Oil Corporation's statement, as the first use of the Asgum mark in commerce ("September, 1923").¹⁶ A second label, for a one-gallon can of Asgum Roof Coating-Liquid Black 35-J-13 published by Mobil Oil Corporation, goes with a trademark file giving first use in 1969.¹⁷

The Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases (1986), in lists of asbestos-containing products as of 1966, 1967 and 1969, names Mobil Chemical products under the Dum Dum name: Dum Dum Caulk for "glazing, filling," Hi Heat Dum Dum as a "joint sealer & gasket," Dum Dum Armacote for "brick boiler settings," Chimney Dum Dum as "waterproofing for concrete chimneys," and Mobil Dum Dum Masonoc as a "filler."^2891011 None of these listings gives an asbestos content.

What the documents show

A Calidria customer. Union Carbide's papers on its Calidria asbestos, produced in later lawsuits, name Mobil Chemical several times.⁵ Its 1971 year-end Calidria sales report lists Mobil Chemical Co. among its accounts, and its customer ship-to list, produced in litigation, gives Mobil Chemical Co. at Edison, New Jersey, and at Kankakee, Illinois.¹²³ On June 18, 1975, Gordon L. Dickson of Union Carbide wrote to R. E. Chamberlin, technical director of Mobil Chemical at Edison, with the results of tests on three samples of commercial ethyl silicate zinc primers that Chamberlin had sent in April.¹³ The letter said one sample did not "evidence the presence of any asbestos," another showed kaolinite "with the possibility of some anthophyllite," and a third contained anthophyllite, and that "None of the samples contained chrysotile (asbestos) as far as could be determined."¹³ Union Carbide's 1976 lists of technical service work record a job for Mobil Chemical in New Jersey to "Identify presence of asbestos material in phenolic product."¹⁴

The Beaumont plant in the Borel trial. In the trial of Borel v. Fibreboard, a co-worker of Clarence Borel named "Mobil Chemical in Beaumont" as a place where the two had worked with asbestos products.¹⁵ Under cross-examination, a witness agreed that his employer on the Mobil Chemical job in 1964 was the Aber Company out of Houston.¹⁶ Another witness said he had worked at Mobil Chemical for Fluor Corporation using "mostly Kaylo," and that he believed Philip Carey products came through the jobber B & B; a defense lawyer objected that the witness only imagined it, and the court overruled the objection.¹⁷ A deposition summary in the case file records testimony that the Aber Company did construction work for Mobil Chemical in Beaumont in 1964, with the witness unable to recall what materials were used.¹⁸

A premises case. In Mobil Oil Corp. v. Bailey, family members sued Mobil Oil Corporation, Mobil Oil Refining Corporation and Mobil Chemical Company, Inc. over a worker's death, alleging asbestos exposure at Mobil's Beaumont facilities between 1966 and 1972.⁴ A jury found for the family, but on March 9, 2006, the Texas Court of Appeals for the Ninth District held that the medical causation evidence had no probative force, reversed, and rendered judgment for Mobil.⁴

Later history

By 2000, Union Carbide's annual report described "ExxonMobil Chemical Company, a division of Exxon Mobil Corporation," as its partner in the Univation Technologies polyethylene venture.¹⁹

References

1. Asgum Roof Coating (Mobil Chemical), product page
2. Dum Dum Caulk (Mobil Chemical), product page, citing Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, vol. 2, p. 72
3. Union Carbide exhibit UC-245, Calidria Shipments to UCC Facilities and Customer Ship-To List (1980), p. 40
4. Mobil Oil Corp. v. Bailey (Texas Court of Appeals, 2006)
5. Mobil Chemical, company page
6. Label: Asgum Roof Coating, Plastic Black (Mobil Chemical Company) (2), ACL Doc 20252
7. Label: Asgum Roof Coating-Liquid Black 35-J-13 (Mobil Chemical Company), 1969, ACL Doc 20255
8. Hi Heat Dum Dum (Mobil Chemical), product page
9. Dum Dum Armacote (Mobil Chemical), product page
10. Chimney Dum Dum (Mobil Chemical), product page
11. Mobil Dum Dum Masonoc (Mobil Chemical), product page
12. Union Carbide exhibit B1-191, John L. Myers transmittal of December and year-end 1971 Calidria sales report, p. 12
13. Union Carbide exhibit UC-387, Gordon L. Dickson to R. E. Chamberlin (Mobil Chemical), June 18, 1975, p. 1
14. Union Carbide exhibit UC-5111, B. L. Ingalls to H. B. Rhodes on Calidria marketing services work assignments, 1976, p. 5
15. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File, trial transcript, vol. I, p. 35
16. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File, trial transcript, vol. I, p. 68
17. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File, trial transcript, vol. II, p. 109
18. The Borel v. Fibreboard Case File, deposition summary (Petrofsky), p. 3
19. Union Carbide exhibit UC-4809, Annual Report on Form 10-K405 for 2000, p. 11

Asbestos products

7 products our documents name Mobil Chemical Co as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Asgum Roof Coating (Mobil Chemical)
• Chimney Dum Dum (Mobil Chemical)
• Dum Dum Armacote (Mobil Chemical)
• Dum Dum Caulk (Mobil Chemical)
• Dum Dum for Metal (Mobil Chemical)
• Hi Heat Dum Dum (Mobil Chemical)
• Mobil Dum Dum Masonoc (Mobil Chemical)

Court cases

1 court decision in our case-law library name Mobil Chemical Co as a defendant.

• Mobil Oil Corp. v. Bailey (2006)

In our library

2 documents in our library name Mobil Chemical Co, by collection.

Other library documents (2)

• Label: Asgum Roof Coating, Plastic Black (Mobil Chemical Company) (publisher)
• Label: Asgum Roof Coating, Plastic Black (Mobil Chemical Company) (2) (1923) (publisher)

In the Union Carbide documents

Mobil Chemical Co is named in 3 Union Carbide documents dated 1975 to 1976 (3 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. All are published in our collection.

• Gordon L. Dickson to R. E. Chamberlin (Mobil Chemical) on Asbestos Analysis of Ethyl Silicate Zinc Primer Samples (1975) UC-387 (mentioned)
• Technical Service Developmental Programs, Plant Assistance, Customer Technical Service and Dust Count Services Summary (1976) UC-2202 (mentioned)
• B. L. Ingalls to H. B. Rhodes on Calidria Asbestos Marketing Services Work Assignments, January-October 1976, with Attached Service Lists (1976) UC-5111 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Mobil Chemical Co, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Mobil Chemical Company.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names Mobil Chemical Co, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.