Abstract: The Sumatra Basin is the largest hydrocarbon rich region in Indonesia, but the exploration result is getting worse with the continuously deep exploration, indicating a bottleneck period of oil and gas exploration. Based on the study of geological characteristics and resource potential of the basin, the possible exploration fields are predicted. The results show that the basin has experienced three stages of tectonic evolution during the Cenozoic, namely the Middle Eocene-Oligocene syn-rift stage, the Early-Middle Miocene post-rift stage and the Late Miocene-present compression stage; Three types of source rocks are developed, namely the lacustrine source rocks in Central Sumatra Basin, marine source rocks in North and South Sumatra Basin, and marine continental transitional source rocks in South Sumatra Basin; Structural trap is the main trap type in the basin. The oil and gas reservoirs are distributed around the hydrocarbon generation center, which migrated vertically to the trap through oil-source faults and accumulated in reservoirs; The cumulative undiscovered oil resources are 23.67×10⁸bbl, and the undiscovered natural gas resources are 11.26×10¹²ft³, which still have great exploration potential as well as resource foundation for forming medium and small-scale oil and gas reservoirs. The Middle-Upper Miocene and buried hills in the central structural belt are the main fields for rolling exploration; The Oligocene reef/carbonate buildup in the northern structural belt is a major field for risk exploration, which is also a field to discover large-medium sized oil and gas reservoirs.