In order to establish an analytical method of nonionic surfactant of laurel alcohol polyoxyethylene ether used for tertiary oil recovery by high performance liquid chromatography，The best conditions were established by optimizing the chromatographic elements and the method was evaluated consequently. As a result，the chromatographic column was a 15 cm × 4.6 mm hydroxyl column；the mobile phase was consisted of acetonitrile and water using gradient elution（0—3 min：25% acetonitrile/75% water；3—8 min：90% acetonitrile/10% water；8.01 min：25% acetonitrile/75% water）with the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. Mass detector with positive mode was used for detecting nonionic surfactant and the injection volume was 2 μL. The linear correlation coefficient R was 0.99998 in the concentration range of 20—200 mg/L. The detection limit was as low as 5 mg/L，the spiked recovery was between 88.10% and 97.14%，and the analysis time could be controlled within 10 minutes. The detection method was accurate， sensitive and rapid，and could meet the quantitative detection of lauryl alcohol polyoxyethylene ether in complex production liquid. Moreover，due to the mass spectra being used，the structure of laurel alcohol polyoxyethylene ether in oilfield produced water could be analyzed at the same time of concentration detection.