Glossary
Refinery Operator Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential refinery operator terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key refinery operator vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in refinery operator training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Board operator
- The control room operator.
- Cracking
- Breaking large molecules into smaller ones.
- Crude oil
- Unrefined petroleum.
- Distillation
- Separating by boiling point.
- Flare
- A system that burns released gases.
- Fractionator
- A column that separates products.
- Gauging
- Measuring tank levels.
- Hot work
- Work that creates sparks or flames.
- MOC
- Management of change.
- Outside operator
- Field operator.
- PSM
- Process safety management.
- Spec
- Product quality specification.
- Turnaround
- A planned unit shutdown for maintenance.
- Upset
- An abnormal operating condition.
- Work permit
- Authorization for maintenance work.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Refinery Operator practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Refinery Operator training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.