In this study,petroleum products and a typical SBR wastewater treatment plant were chosen to investigate the impact of episodic petroleum pollution accident on the performance of wastewater treatment of the plant. The feasibility of using wastewater treatment plant to remove oil pollution was investigated. The experimental results show that SBR wastewater treatment plant can effectively resist the impact of 50 mg/L oil pollution and the effluent water quality reaches the national discharge standards. However,the COD and oil concentrations are over the national discharge standards when the oil impact concentration is higher than 100 mg/L. In such a case,other technical methods combined with SBR are needed to enhance the treatment efficiency. SBR wastewater treatment plant can resist the effect of oil pollution when the petroleum concentration is within a threshold value.