Abstract: In the past 10 years, global oil and gas exploration experienced the double test of twice sharp falls of oil prices and “carbon neutralization”, and the exploration investment was continuously reduced; Meanwhile, the continuous development of oil and gas geological theory and exploration technology resulted in the great improvement of exploration efficiency. As a whole, global oil and gas exploration shows five remarkable characteristics: (1) The number of oil and gas discoveries has been decreasing, but the average size continuously been increasing; (2) The new discovery of natural gas has been maintained at a high level of more than 60%, growing to be a major direction of reserve growth; (3) Deep water/ultra-deep water has become the most important areas for increasing reserves, and multiple new exploration areas have been identified; (4) The new discoveries have gradually shifted from the middle-shallow formation to the deep/ultra-deep formation, and new breakthroughs have been made in the offshore area and onshore area; (5) The discoveries of giant oil and gas fields have remained at a relatively high level. The new discoveries from venture exploration in frontier areas contribute 58% of the total oil and gas discoveries, and the new reserves from rolling exploration in mature basins contribute 42% of the total reserve volume. The maturity of global oil and gas exploration is still at a medium-low level, and the exploration potential is great in the future; The frontier region is the main areas for oil and gas exploration, which should be deployed in advanced; Deep water, deep formation and natural gas areas are important exploration orientations in the future. Furthermore, it is suggested that 10 areas deserve special attention, such as the Russian Arctic, Somali offshore areas and the periphery of the Caribbean Sea.