An experimental facility to be used to treat phenolic wastewater from oil refinery by HCR (high performance reactor) process was set up and some factors on degradation of phenol and COD in operation, including residence time of wastewater, concentration of phenol, temperature and impact load were investigated. Compared with activated sludge process ,the results obtained by HCR process show some characteristics such as shorter residence time of wastewater, wider range of temperature in operation, higher concentration of phenol in wastewater to be treated and stronger resistance to dynamic impact of water load. The percents of phenol and COD degradation were over 85% and 75% respectively under the 2 h of residence time, 105 mg/L concentration of phenol and 381 mg/L of COD in wastewater. The operation in HCR process could keep stable. High performance of degradation and stable operation made HCR process suitable to pretreatment phenolic wastewater from oil refinery.