Large-scale weathering crust karsted carbonate reservoir beds were developed in the Lower Ordovician Yingshan Formation on the northern slope of the Tazhong area in the Tarim Basin, NW China. The research on weathering crust karsted reservoir beds and faulting showed strongly heterogeneous karsted reservoir beds characterized by horizontal contiguous distribution and vertical superimposition, with fracture-hole as the main reservoir space. High quality reservoir beds were developed in the vertical seepage zone and horizontal phreatic zone, 0–200 meters below the unconformity. Reservoir bed quality of karsted carbonate rock was greatly improved by faulting, which increased the depth and size of karstification. A strike-slip fault developed over a long period in the NE direction and a thrust fault in the NW direction crossed each other, and caused distinct segmentation of the Tazhong No.1 Fault and dissection of the Yingshan Formation into multiple structural units. The strike-slip fault was the significant hydrocarbon migration pathway. Multiple hydrocarbon charging points were formed by the thrust fault and strike-slip fault, as the important fill-in of late-stage gas accumulation. Under the dual control of faulting and karstification, accumulation of hydrocarbons in the Lower Ordovician Yingshan Formation showed distinct segment-wise and block-wise features. Oil distribution is “high in the west and interior, low in the east and exterior”, while gas distribution is the opposite. The hydrocarbon play extends within 0.8–4.5 kilometers from the strike-slip fault and appeared layered vertically at 10–220 meters below the unconformity.
Typical end-member oil derived from Cambrian-Lower Ordovician source rocks in the Tarim Basin, NW China