Abstract: Since 1993, Chinese oil corporations have started the pace of “going global”, with E&P activities spreading all over the world over the past 29 years, from land to deep-water, and from conventional to unconventional oil and gas fields, growing to be the major participants of international oil and gas industry. The experience of overseas E&P is divided into four stages, i.e., exploratory stage, rapid development stage, large-scale development stage, and optimization and adjustment stage. It is now an important way to ensure the national energy security given the rising oil and gas external dependence of China. In 2020, the total overseas equity oil and gas production of CNPC, Sinopec and CNOOC was up to 167 million tons oil equivalent. Guided by the goals of “double carbon” and national energy security, it is still a major task to obtain more overseas resources. However, there are series of challenges, such as the geopolitics, shrinking exploration blocks, insufficient reserves, rapid natural decline of production, and difficulty in assets optimization. By benchmarking with the major IOCs, several strategies are proposed for Chinese oil corporations, including quickly building large-scale production areas, increasing new project acquisition, especially from the “Belt and Road” countries, conducting more reliable evaluation and being cautions in acquiring unconventional oil and gas projects, strengthening the disposal of marginal assets, so as to promote high-quality development of overseas oil and gas business.