The Sichuan Basin is one of the largest gas-oil-bearing basins in China. Oil and gas reservoirs occur in Mesozoic, Paleozoic and Proterozoic strata in this basin, with natural gases being dominant. A good wealth of data from 2,000 drill wells on the distribution of natural gases(hydrocarbons: CH4, C2H6^+; non-hydrocarbons: H2S, CO2, N2; rare gases: He, At,Hg) show that natural gases in the basin are predominated by oil-thermoeraeked and coal-series gases.Geological-factor analysis of the geochemical characteristics of natural gases pro-vide evidence suggesting that the oceurrence of natural gases, especially dry gas, is attributed to the high maturity of organic matter, and the multi-productive formation has a great bearing on the multi-source rocks; the anomalies of some. components(e.g. H2S) are related not only to the type of primary organis matter, but also to the lithological characters of reservoir beds. Also discussed in this paper are some geochemical characteristics of coal-series and non-coal-series gases at the same degree of maturation, demonstrating that the former is characterized by high proportions of CH4, and Hg vapor, high C2/C2, ratio, high δ^13C8,low C2^+, and high iC4/nC4.
