Abstract: Shale oil resources are the important oil replacement resources. The main factors controlling the enrichment of sandwich-type shale oil include reservoir physical property, hydrocarbon expulsion intensity and abnormal pressure, and its key development technologies lie in thin bed distribution prediction and fracturing stimulation process. The distribution situation, exploration history and exploration & development status of sandwich-type shale oil reservoirs in China were introduced after the related literatures were investigated. Then, the challenges to the exploration & development of sandwich-type shale oil reservoirs were analyzed based on the bottlenecks of basic theory, theoretical technology, exploration technology and engineering technology. Finally, the exploration & development prospect of sandwich-type shale oil reservoirs in China was forecasted.