The severe service conditions of pipelines in petroleum and petrochemical industry often led to advance scrapping before the maturity of design service and thus caused horrible waste. Therefore, surface engineering technologies played an important role of bringing economic value in pipeline protection and repair. Strengthening mechanisms of thermal spraying, self propagation high-temperature synthesis (SHS) and surface plating on pipeline interior and exterior surfaces were mainly expounded, and their concrete applications were described. For thermal spraying technologies, arc spraying, flame spraying and plasma spraying were mainly introduced and compared regarding their technical principles, applicable material systems, prepared coating properties (bonding strength, porosity, etc.) and economy. SHS was mainly clarified from two aspects of material and process. In addition, the connection methods of ceramic-lined pipes were illustrated. For plating technologies, advantages and disadvantages as well as scopes of application of tungsten alloy electroplating and Ni-P chemical plating were introduced in comparison. Finally, the prospect of surface engineering technologies in petroleum and petrochemical industry were analyzed and expected based on their characteristics.