In order to achieve the reduction and resource utilization of oily sludge, a thin-layer drying experiment platform was set up. Taking the refinery sludge of Lanzhou Petrochemical Company as the research object, the effects of material thickness, drying air velocity and drying temperature were studied experimentally. On the basis of parameter study, the relationship between model parameters and three factors is obtained by fitting the experimental data. The results show that when the drying temperature and drying wind speed increases, and the thickness of the thin layer is decreases, the dried material will reach the dry equilibrium state in a short time. The drying temperature and wind speed mainly act on the acceleration and constant speed stages of the drying, and the thickness of the thin layer mainly acts on the deceleration stage. The optimum conditions for the experiment were drying temperature of 120 °C, drying wind speed of 2.75 m/s, and drying thickness of 3 mm. After the thin layer is dried, the moisture content of the sample is less than 2%, the volume is obviously reduced, and it is powdery after grinding. It is basically non-sticky, and the reduction is realized, which also lays a foundation for resource utilization. In addition, the Karathanos drying model was used to establish the linear relationship between the logarithm of the diffusion coefficient and the reciprocal of the temperature, and the activation energy and diffusion factor under various working conditions were calculated, which provided technical guidance for the thin mud drying treatment scheme of the oily sludge.