Deep marine petroleum reservoirs draw great attention from the oil and gas industry around the world.Despite exploration breakthroughs made in deep and ultra-deep marine carbonate strata in Sichuan and Tarim Basins

Chinese oil companies are still facing many scientific and technologic challenges.This manuscript provides a review of research advances

technological bottlenecks and basic scientific problems relating to the deep marine petroleum accumulations and their exploitation in China; and

to meet the requirement of the national resource strategy

proposes to carry out studies based on analyses of the prototypes and transformation of the Upper Yangtze

Tarim and North China cratons.The studies include integrated multidisciplinary programs on petroleum accumulation and flow mechanisms in deep marine carbonate reservoirs and deep shale gas reservoirs

geophysical theories and methods for imaging and predicting complicated deep reservoirs

and new protocols and downhole tools for deep well drilling and completion.A strengthened analysis of the total factor and life cycle of basin formation

diagenesis

reservoir formation

hydrocarbon generation and accumulation

over a geological and human time scale

is also recommended to help establishing geological models of accumulation and transportation of conventional and unconventional oil and gas in deep marine strata for more reliable petroleum resource assessment and exploration prospect prediction.Future researches are suggested to be focused on solving key geophysical problems

including the low signal-to-noise ratio

low resolution

low imaging accuracy

and low amplitude-preservation

in the exploration of deep marine reservoirs.It calls for efforts made in the imaging and prediction of complicated deep structures and reservoirs

through enhanced technologies such as broad band seismic acquisition

complex structure modelling

anisotropic pre-stack depth migration(PSDM)

and quantitative assessment of complicated reservoirs.Such engineering challenges in deep marine reservoirs as how to speed up drilling and maintain wellbore integrity are also suggested to be dealt with first as most of the reservoirs are featured in multiple production zones

strong heterogeneity

and high temperature and high pressure.