Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers Salary and Pay

The national wage ladder (BLS OEWS, May 2024)

A percentile marks a point in this occupation's pay distribution: the worker one quarter of the way up the Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers ladder earns the 25th percentile wage, $77,970. BLS top-codes very high wages ($239,200+ a year, $115.00+ an hour) and marks estimates it cannot publish as n/p.

Employment and concentration

With 34,860 jobs nationally, Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers make up 0.02% of U.S. employment as BLS measured it in May 2024. The map is uneven: Texas alone holds 12,060 of those jobs, the top three states hold 55.1%, and the deepest concentration sits in Wyoming (location quotient 11.07, where 1.00 is the national average). A quotient above 2 usually signals a local industry cluster rather than evenly spread demand.

One in ten workers in this field earns $59,790 or less, and one in ten earns $112,920 or more, so the top-to-bottom ratio is 1.9 to 1 and the annual gap is $53,130. The mean ($90,970) versus median ($97,540) comparison shows an unusually symmetric ladder in this occupation.

Pay by state

The state spread for Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers runs from the $107,270 median in California down through every other publishing state. Employment concentrates in Texas (12,060 jobs). The complete table:

The occupation in context

Ranked against all 826 published occupations, Petroleum Pump System Operators, Refinery Operators, and Gaugers stands number 456 by employment and number 136 by median pay. Inside its own major group, Production Occupations, the group median wage is $46,020 across 105 detailed occupations, so this occupation pays 112% more than its group median, and it supplies 0.4% of the group's 8,743,430 jobs. In 13 of the 41 states with a published median, the state median beats the national median of $97,540, which is the single best quick test of whether this occupation's pay is set nationally or locally: a high count means local markets regularly outbid the national figure.

Metropolitan areas: where the jobs and the pay sit

Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX is the largest metro employer with 6,200 jobs, 17.8% of the national total. Below, the biggest employers come first; the pay table after it only counts metros with 500 or more jobs in the occupation, so its leader is a real market and not a statistical artifact.

Largest metro employers

Highest-paying metros (500+ jobs)

At the other end, Baton Rouge, LA posts the lowest mean pay among metros with at least 500 jobs, $87,430 a year, against $115,220 in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA. Anyone relocating for this work should price the destination metro's table row, not the national median, before signing anything.

What the median pay looks like as a budget

Budget arithmetic on the median: $8,128 a month before tax, $3,752 biweekly, $1,876 weekly. Moving from the 25th percentile ($77,970) to the 75th ($104,660) is worth $26,690 a year, which is the realistic size of the experience and specialization premium inside this occupation. To turn any of these gross figures into spendable money, run them through the paycheck calculator; to weigh an offer against your current role, use the salary calculator; to test a raise against prices, the raise vs inflation calculator.

To place a real offer: a salary of $107,294 would sit between the median ($97,540) and the 75th percentile ($104,660), inside the top half but outside the top quarter of this occupation's ladder. An offer at the 25th percentile, $77,970, is $19,570 under the median, the typical size of the discount attached to entry-level or low-cost-market postings in this field.

Related occupations in Production Occupations

Compare the ladder above with the closest relatives in the survey: Tire Builders, Textile Winding, Twisting, and Drawing Out Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal-Refining Furnace Operators and Tenders, Metal Workers and Plastic Workers, All Other, Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders, Lathe and Turning Machine Tool Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic. The Careers hub carries the whole branch, group by group.