Abstract: Abstract: Lower CongoCongo Fan Basin, located in the western coast of Africa, is one of the world's oil and gas exploration priorities and hot spots in recent years. Being rich in oil and gas and having the giant remnant resource potential, it has long been drawn the great concern from many researchers, and a series of exploration and research work were made from the different aspects such as tectonic evolution, petroleum geology, hydrocarbon migration and accumulation, and resource potential, etc. However, the exploration density is not uniform as the basin covers onshore and offshore which includes shallow water, deep to ultradeepwater areas from east to west. Therefore, how to fully evaluate the oil and gas remnant resource potential of the basin will be a key factor to guide next exploration deployment in the basin. By the integrated analysis of tectonostratigraphic framework and basin evolution, it is pointed out that Lower CongoCongo Fan Basin is a composite petroliferous salt basin superimposed of the Congo Fan Basin on Lower Congo Basin. Taking petroleum geological elements, and features of hydrocarbon migration and accumulation into consideration, three petroleum exploration domains are identified from Lower Cretaceous to Cenozoic, which are the Cenozoic exploration domain related to structurallithologic traps, the postsalt Cretaceous exploration domain related to structural traps, and the presalt Cretaceous exploration domain related to the Early Cretaceous rift, respectively. The subdivision of the three exploration domains lays a sound foundation for systematically evaluating hydrocarbon potential according to the exploratory objectives. By integrated analysis of the petroleum exploration domains, it is pointed out that onshore to shallow water area in the eastern basin is favorable for the postsalt and the presalt Cretaceous exploration domains, and deep to ultradeep water area in the western basin is favorable for the Cenozoic structurallithologic traps exploration domain.

Key words: exploration domain, sedimentotectonic evolution, Lower CongoCongo Fan Basin, West Africa