The study has investigated the technical characteristics of a number of sorption materials (natural mineral) and the pos-sibility of their use for the purification of surface and wastewater from oil and oil products. At the first step, regularities of the process of purification of oily waters have been established taking into account the processes of filtration and sorption. After that, the sorption capacity of the sorbents has been estimated, and the factors influencing it analysed. As a final step, the optimal conditions for the sorption process have been selected depending on the conditions and nature of purification. Results indicated that the maximum purification degree has been reached at the concentration of 500 mg∙dm–3 and temper-ature of 20°С.