Geothermal energy and petroleum are two kinds of resources coexisting in sedimentary basins. The exploitation and the utilization of the geothermal energy are highly integrated into the oil and gas related technologies. Oil fields in China contain rich geothermal resources, with a large number of abandoned drilling wells, and a huge geothermal utilization market space. This paper reviews the geothermal resource exploration, evaluation, development and utilization technologies in oil fields of China, including the geothermal geophysical exploration technology, the geothermal geological evaluation technology, the geothermal development technology and the geothermal utilization methods. However, the geothermal development and utilization in oil fields still poses some challenges, for example, the resource condition constraints the decision making, the insufficient technological innovation, and the imperfect incentive policies. Finally, some emerging technologies are proposed to accelerate the geothermal development and utilization in oil fields, such as the deep well direct heat transfer technology, the multi-branch radial horizontal well heat capture technology, the thermoelectric power generation technology and the nano technology.

geothermal development in oil regions  /  geothermal resource evaluation  /  deep well heat transfer  /  multi-branch radial horizontal well heat extraction  /  thermoelectric power generation