How To Become A Refinery Process Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a refinery process engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

Edoardo Sarda Ph.D.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a refinery process engineer. For example, did you know that they make an average of $40.5 an hour? That's $84,248 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 14% and produce 3,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a refinery process engineer?

Edoardo Sarda Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Robotics Engineering, Lake Superior State University

Flexibility has become a key asset for new graduates, due to the current COVID19 pandemic. Fortunately, engineers are still in high demand. Even fresh graduates may need to seek opportunities and accept positions working in areas that were not exactly what they had in mind while in college. Besides, the pandemic has created a reality where specific industries are struggling while others are booming. That will undoubtedly impact the demand for new engineers. Lastly, since the United States took a non-uniform approach to fight the pandemic, where every state is independently deciding how to reopen, leading to some states being stricter than others, in addition to new epicenters forming in different areas of the country at different times, new grads may not necessarily end up in the geographical location they may have originally planned.

ScoreRefinery Process EngineerUS Average

Salary

6.6

Avg. Salary $84,248

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.8

Growth rate 14%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

7.4

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.38%

Asian 15.46%

Black or African American 4.25%

Hispanic or Latino 10.84%

Unknown 5.66%

White 63.42%

Gender

female 7.69%

male 92.31%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

6.8

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.3

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.3

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a refinery process engineer

Explore refinery process engineer education requirements

Most common refinery process engineer degrees

Bachelor's

82.7 %

Master's

9.6 %

Associate

3.8 %

Start to develop specific refinery process engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
PSM	17.75%
MOC	16.91%
Engineering Support	13.07%
Process Design	11.49%
Distillation	11.47%

Complete relevant refinery process engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New refinery process engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a refinery process engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real refinery process engineer resumes.

Research refinery process engineer duties and responsibilities

Design & manage small cap projects up to $500K involving fluid systems & heat exchange and PSM.
Lead and assist maintenance in resolving equipment malfunctions, troubleshoot process problems, and organize and implement preventative maintenance procedures.
Supervise and train operation personnel in the safe operation of 27,000 BPD oil refinery.
Determine most effective arrangement of operations such as mixing, crushing, heat transfer, distillation, and drying.

Apply for refinery process engineer jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a refinery process engineer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do refinery process engineers rate their job?

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Refinery process engineer reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Aug 2019

Cons

The pay grade is low keyed for the type of production we produce. Average salary is $78,540 dollars...