Historical review and prospect forecast of the development course of hydrocarbon geochemical exploration techniqu in China

Geochemical exploration for oil and gas is a new subject developed on the basis of petroleum geological principle and geochemical theory. During near 60 years of development in China, this technique has experienced the hardness in the early establishment period, the insistence in the experimental research period, the vitality in the vigorous development period and the present potential gathering period. This paper has generally reviewed this history, and reflected the achievements obtained, and at the mean time, left some space for further pondering. The future development prospect has also been discussed based on the present situation of oil and gas resources and exploration in China. The conclusions have been reached that include the following aspects: 1) the rapid increase for national energy demand provides great opportunity for the sustainable development of oil and gas geochemical exploration technique; 2) the market requirements for reducing costs and increasing success rate make the geochemical exploration technique more and more important for its advantages; 3) wide implication of integrated exploration techniques when facing more and more complicated exploration targets will certainly provides broader space for this technique to play more important roles.