Exploration guide of deepwater oil and gas resources along the Maritime Silk Road

Deepwater oil and gas has become the most important worldwide replacement resources for conventional oil and gas.The Maritime Silk Road is rich in oil and gas resources, and is the most active area for oil and gas exploration and development in the world.Significant breakthroughs have been made in deepwater oil and gas, but some areas are less explored and have less discovered oil and gas fields, so these areas exhibit great potential for exploration.The deepwater basins along the Maritime Silk Road mainly present "one horizontal and longitudinal" distribution pattern.The "one horizontal" mainly refers to the deepwater basin groups in the near east-west direction within the Neotethys tectonic domain and the "one longitudinal" mainly refers to the deepwater basin groups in the near north-south direction in the continental margin of East Africa.The latest deepwater oil and gas discoveries have confirmed that the basins along the Silk Road have the material basis for the formation of large oil and gas fields, and there exist efficient oil and gas migration channels.The overall exploration degree of deepwater oil and gas along the Maritime Silk Road is relatively low.The future oil and gas exploration in deep water area will focus on searching for two kinds of traps, including structure and lithology.As for exploration of oil and gas in deepwater area, the Bay of Bengal is targeted at lithologic traps formed by Cenozoic turbidite sand bodies, while Pakistan aims at lithologic traps formed by Cenozoic reefs and river sand bodies. East Africa coast is aimed at lithologic and stratigraphic traps formed by offshore reefs and seabed turbidite sand bodies developed in Mesozoic and Cenozoic, while Southeast Asia aims to search for large structure-controlled oil and gas fields.