Occupation / job
Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
$96,710 is $3,890 a month above the $50,020 the typical American job pays. Differences of that size in Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers are held in place by a barrier — a licence, a residency, a clearance — and the barrier is the real subject of this page.
With 33,160 employed as Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers, most metros have a working market: several employers, visible turnover, and the ability to change jobs without moving house.
Plant and system operation suits people who can stay attentive to a stable process for hours and act correctly in the rare minutes when it stops being stable.
No verified preparation time is on file for Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
A quarter of Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers earn under $77,510 and a quarter over $106,320 — 1.4x, or $28,810 apart. Narrow spreads usually mean a pay schedule, which is stability bought at the price of upside.
The 25th percentile is $77,510, $27,490 above the $50,020 typical American job. When even the floor is this high, the thing to investigate is the entry requirement rather than the pay.
Avoid it if you would not want the responsibility of being the person on shift when the system goes out of range.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 33,160 people employed as Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
The quarters are $77,510 and $106,320, a ratio of 1.4x. In a distribution this narrow, the biggest single lever on your pay in Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers is the cost of living where you do it.
In cash terms the middle half of Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers runs $77,510 to $106,320 — $28,810 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $96,710.
Between $77,510 and $106,320 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $96,710. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $9,610; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $28,810.
The midpoint sits high inside its own range: $19,200 above the $77,510 bottom quarter but only $9,610 below the $106,320 top quarter. Most of the distance in Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers is spent climbing out of the bottom, and once you are past the middle there is not much further to go.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers is $46.49 an hour. The quarters sit at $37.26 and $51.11, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
This is payroll data: it comes from employers, about people they employ. Anyone doing the work of Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers for themselves is not in it, and there is no reason to assume $96,710 describes them.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $96,710 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else