The University of Tulsa Refining Technologies Group is a petroleum upgrading research group whose mission is to advance the upgrading of crude oils and heavy oils and provide valuable tools through in-depth targeted and applied research. The University of Tulsa Refining Technologies Group is also looking at renewable studies using algae, motor oils, fats, plastics, etc. as well as CO2 sequestration studies.

To this end several pilot plants including a vacuum distillation unit, a coil and/or soaker visbreaker, a delayed coker, a serpentine/helical tube furnace, a Quartz reactor, a hot liquid processing unit, a batch SDA unit, a hydroprocessing unit, a turbulent fouling unit, and a vapor liquid separation unit are used. Several of these pilot units also have bench scale counterparts for smaller scale studies.