Abstract: The experiences of development of Karamay oilfield for forty years showed that there are three essential conditions for high-efficiently developing an oilfield, i. e., in-sisting on geology research work by ta king cla rif ying a reservoir's main geologic character-istics as the core; creating a set of development techniq ues/tech nologies suitable to the characteristics; im plementation of a systematic engineering in whole performance history and complete orientation, Du ring the whole systema tic engineering of anoilfield exploits-tion, geology research work is its key link, which runs through the whole performa nce history. In each stage of development, geology research work has been given to specifictask and expected target. These stages have connections with each other, finally forming an unified system for geology research work.

Key words: Karamay oilfield, Oilfield development, Development theory, Development project, Development stage, System engineering