Abstract: Theories in evaporation loss of petroleum products, and techniques and key research direction to reduce evaporation lOSS are reviewed in the paper.A viewpoint is put forward that theoretical study in the evaporation loss of petroleum products shall be combined with field testing data.Combined with China's situation, authors suggest that vapor recovery techniques shall be popularized as soon as possi ble and further study in surface covering materials shall be carried out so as to get better economic profits.