Refinery Operations and Management

Refinery Operations and Management is a five-day senior management course delivered by Mars Training Centre across its international network — in London, Dubai, Al Jubail, Amsterdam, and Jakarta — designed for refinery managers, downstream commercial leaders, and senior decision-makers who steer refining assets through margin cycles, regulatory change, and energy-transition pressure.

Refining is the most operationally intricate segment of the petroleum value chain and one of the most exposed to global margin swings. A refinery's configuration is fixed for decades, but the crudes it processes, the products it sells, and the regulations it must comply with change continuously. The difference between a profitable asset and a stranded one increasingly comes down to the quality of senior management — how it reads margins, plans turnarounds, integrates with petrochemicals, and positions the asset for the next twenty years.

This programme equips senior refining and downstream leaders with the structured commercial, operational, and strategic frameworks needed to lead a refining business through the current decade. You will examine refinery configurations, margin formation, planning and scheduling discipline, turnaround economics, and the strategic questions facing every refining executive: integration with petrochemicals, low-carbon products, and asset longevity.

What You Will Learn

• Describe the principal refinery configurations and their commercial implications.
• Analyse refinery margin formation and the levers a manager can pull.
• Evaluate the planning and scheduling discipline that drives refinery profitability.
• Assess crude selection decisions and their impact on yields and constraints.
• Apply turnaround and major maintenance economics at executive level.
• Diagnose the principal HSE and process-safety risks in refining operations.
• Evaluate refining-petrochemical integration strategies and their commercial logic.
• Position a refining asset against energy-transition scenarios and low-carbon product demand.
• Read a refinery's operational and financial performance with executive judgement.
• Lead a senior refinery management team with clear commercial direction.

How You Will Benefit

You will leave with a structured commercial and operational command of modern refining, sharper questions for your operations and planning teams, and the strategic framing to guide your asset through the next decade — and a Mars Certificate of Completion.

Your organisation will gain a refining leader who can read margins accurately, prioritise capital and turnaround decisions, and position the asset for long-term resilience in a changing product market.

Who This Programme Is For

This programme is designed for senior refining and downstream professionals, including:

• Refinery managers and deputy refinery managers
• Heads of refining operations, planning, and economics
• Senior commercial managers in downstream operating companies
• Refining and trading interface leads
• Senior project and turnaround directors in refining
• HSE and process safety directors in refining assets
• Government affairs leads at downstream operators

The seniority floor is senior manager and above.