Hydrocarbon resources will be in short supply in the future in China. Since 1993, China has been a net importer of oil while oil and gas imports increase year by year. The amounts imported reached 328 million tons of oil and 62.4 billion cubic meters of gas in 2015. External oil dependency will increase from 65% in 2015 to more than 80% in 2030. The Chinese Academy of Engineering and the International Energy Agency (IEA) predict that China will have future long-term oil and gas shortages. The proportion of oil and gas in China’s energy use is less than 23% at present, which is substantially lower than the 75% in the United States and 67% in Russia. A substantial increase in the proportion of oil and gas used has practical significance in reducing pollution and improving people’s living standards. China is rich in oil and gas resources, but the geological conditions are complex and development is expensive. Chinese hydrocarbon resources show many characteristics. Firstly, the oil and gas resource distribution is highly uneven. The characteristics of hydrocarbon resources in different basins, different chronostratigraphy and different burial depths are very different. Secondly, the unconventional oil and gas resources are very varied and large. Finally, the residual conventional oil and gas resources are smaller, poor quality and have adverse geological conditions. Future exploration will face great difficulties and high costs. Although China’s oil and gas exploration research has achieved a great deal, there is still a large gap from advanced foreign levels. In theory, significant progress has been made in understanding the formation and evolution of reservoirs, stratigraphic classification and the origins of different rock types and gas types and China’s complicated superimposed basins. In technology, important progress has been made in oil and gas exploration technology under complicated geological conditions, complex reservoir development and exploitation technology. As to equipment, the ultra-deep drilling, ocean 985 drilling platform, large fracturing truck, X100 grade pipeline steel, geological guide PDC bit and so on have been designed and manufactured. Even so, China still falls far behind developed countries in the key areas of unconventional, deep stratum and deep-sea oil and gas exploration and development. The proportion of leading technologies is no more than 30%. More than 60% technologies are in the tracking state. Three challenges to China’s oil and gas resources research needs to be faced without delay. First, it is currently very difficult and expensive to explore for and develop hydrocarbon resources in China. Discovered reserves are only growing slowly. The ratio of production to reservoir reserves is very low. All of these key technologies need to be studied seriously. Second, the funds invested in the key technologies of oil and gas resources exploration and development are low and changeable. This is harmful to the development and application of original technology. The funding of basic research, technology development and commercial application all need to be increased. Third, in China, the unconventional, deep, deep-sea and residual oil and gas resources are abundant, and the actual reserves increase rapidly. All of these would be the development directions of oil and gas resources. But first of all, the serious challenges currently need to be tackled and solved as soon as possible.