Abstract: South China includes ten provinces(municipality), such as Guangdong, Hainan, Yunnan, south of Yangzi River of Jiangsu, and so on. Present resource evaluation indicates that oil shale of south China are distributed in twelve basins, seventeen oil shale deposits, twentythree prospecting units and ten predicting units in seven provinces(municipality), including Guangdong, Hainan and Guangxi, and so on. Oil shale resource of South China is estimated at about 203.62×10⁸t, with converted shale oil of about 11.93×10⁸t. Among them discovered resource is estimated at about 94.21×10⁸t, account for 25.34％ of China total oil shale discovered; proved resource of South China is estimated at about 45.60×10⁸t, account for 58％ of China total oil shale resource proved. Oil shale resource of South China is mainly located in small halfgraben basins of Cenozoic and Mesozoic, their quality is better and oil yield could reach 5% to 10%. In order to exploit and utilize oil shale effectively, ten best target units, three better target units and nine good target units are selected based on multiparameters optimization standards and queuing results of oil shale exploitation targets. Combined the comprehensive optimization queuing results, traffic and geographical, and exploitation condition, four development targets in the near future (including the Yangjiao intense exploration area) and five development target reservation (including the Yangjiao well field of the Maoming coalfield) are determined in South China.

Key words: South China, oil shale resource, distribution law, exploitation target optimization