Abstract: Since the period of the Eighth Five-Year Plan, important breakthrough has been made for petroleum exploration in western China. A number of high-yield large and medium-sized oil and gas fields were discovered in basins such as Junggar, Tarim, Turpan-Hami and Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia etc.. so were done around seabeach area of Bohai bay. These achievements benifit by proper implementation of the strategies in China’s petroleum industry “to maintain the production in the east and develop the resource in the west" as well as devoting major efforts to developing new and advanced technologies on petroleum exploration. In order to keep these situations continuously, it is necessary to strengthen exploration in the western areas during the period of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, along with making new prospecting in the eastern area, developing new and advanced exploration techniques, increasing exploratory investment of the west to reach 30% of the total amount in China's petroleum industry, and intensifying and improving management structures in petroleum exploration.

Key words: China, Onshore, Petroleum, Exploration, Exploratory result, Exploration policey