Abstract：At present, East Africa continental margin which has won a big breakthrough in oil and gas exploration has become the hot spot of the world petroleum exploration. Compared with West and North Africa, East Africa is at the very low oil and gas exploration and research level. After complicated tectonic evolution, the basin structure, deposition and petroleum system as well as their interaction have become very complex, which is not favorable for the analysis and judgment of the petroleum exploration prospect of East Africa. Studies of the evolution process of the East Africa continental margin in combination with the current basin structure and oil and gas discovery indicate that the continental margin of East Africa has successively experienced Karoo intracontinental rifting, Jurassic and cretaceous rifting and a passive epicontinental action. Two rifts provided good sedimentary environments such as lacustrine facies and lagoon facies, which formed multiple hydrocarbon source formations. In space and time, they constituted a good hydrocarbon-reservoir system with delta and deep-water turbidite fans in the passive continental margin stage. In addition, they were both controlled by complex tectonic evolution which decided the size of reservoirs and the style of hydrocarbons.