Abstract: The pre-salt deepwater of South Atlantic Ocean basins have become the hot areas of oil exploration. These basins have experienced the similar tectonic and sedimentary evolution and similar petroliferous geological conditions. Major discoveries have been continually made in the basis of Brazil^’s coast in recent years, but no breakthroughs have been made in pre-salt exploration of the basins of West Africa^’s coast. This paper selects three important basins – Santos, Campos and Kwanza – to compare their pre-salt geological characteristics and analyze their basin framework, sedimentary reservoirs and source rock characteristics. According to this paper, the basin framework controls sedimentary reservoir development, thus controlling oil and gas accumulations. Brazil^’s Santos Basin and Campos Basin are in the patterns of ^“two depressions and one uplift^” and ^“two depressions and three uplifts^” respectively. The depressions are favorable hydrocarbon sourcing zones while the uplifts are favorable hydrocarbon accumulations zones, accumulated on a large scale and in concentration. West Africa^’s Kwanza Basin is nearly in the pattern of ^“three depressions and two uplifts^” ,it conjugates with Campos Basin. But the pre-salt structure is mainly composed of faulted blocks mixed with horsts and grabens at a small scale and in dispersion, distributed in a narrow-ribbon shape. All the three basins of Santos, Campos and Kwanza have abundant pre-salt lacustrine source rock, deposited under the salt lake environment and containing kerogen of Ⅰ - Ⅱ type. Drilling has confi rmed such source rock. Two sets of reservoir developed in the pre-salt formations of Brazil’s Santos and Campos basins, namely late syn-rift bioclastic limestone and sag microbialites. The recent oil and gas discoveries in West Africa^’s Kwanza basin indicate that the similar reservoirs also exist in the pres-salt formations of the basin.