China University of Petroleum (CUP) is one of the major state universities under the jurisdiction of the State Education Ministry. Formerly known as The Beijing Petroleum Institute and founded in 1953, it moved to Dongying City, Shandong Province in 1969, with its name changed to The East China Petroleum Institute. In 1988 it was renamed The University of Petroleum, consisting of one university in East China and one in Beijing.
The University of Petroleum (East China) is the main part of the UPC. In 1997, it ranked among the key universities of the “211 Project” which means 100 key universities will be built in the 21st century in China and was examined and accepted by the State Education Ministry in 2001.

The University of Petroleum (East China) covers an area of 3100 Chinese mu (about 200 hectares) with 650,000 m2 of floor space. The library has a collection of 1.27 million volumes. In addition to 13 colleges and departments, there are also an Adult Education School, a Network Education School and an Advanced Vocational School, and the university has over 17,000 regular undergraduates over 2,000 postgraduates over 139,000 correspondence students and over 6,000 Internet students