Following the recent development of techniques in analytical instruments, more and more new techniques and new methods are developed and applied in petroleum industries. Compare with the traditional analysis, instrumental analysis has many advantages, such as: good reproducibility, high sensitivity, high throughput, less sample required and low detection limit. Modern instrumental analysis assists the development of petroleum industry, and becomes more and more important. In this article, several modern instruments are introduced, including: XRF, XRD, ICPOES, ICP-MS, Hg analyzer, IC, S analyzer, N analyzer, and TGA-MS. They are applied in element quantitation of petroleum products and water quality, as well as in composition and structure characterization of catalyst.