Abstract: The challenges and the countermeasures were paid close attention to European refining industry in the 18th ERTC Annual Meeting hold in Budapest，Hungary in 2013. The advance technologies and their applications for enhancing competitiveness of European refineries were presented. The topics discussed include plant and feedstock flexibility improvement and the product slate expansion, technologies processing inferior crudes and bottom of the barrel, production of more diesel fuel and petrochemicals, profit maximization, emission control and capture, energy efficiency, biofuels and biomass, petrochemicals, asset optimal utilization, technologies and processes. The meeting represented that despite the gloomy prospect of the industry, European refiners are in the hope of increasing profit by investment in technology. Key Words：inferior crude; heavy oil; diesel; profit; emission; energy efficiency