Major features, especially tectonic features of world's famous deep-water oil/gas fileds are outlined, which demonstrated the structural diversity of hydrocarbon accumulation in deep-water environment. Although majority of giant fields are discovered in the passive continental margins of open oceans (e.g. the South Atlantic rift system, the North Sea, the NW Australia shelf), giant and large fields have been found also in the passive continental margins of marginal seas (e.g. the Gulf of Mexico), transfer continental margins (e.g. the Los Angeles basin), and active convergent margins (e.g. the NW Borneo trough). In comparison, the deep-water region of northern South China Sea shares some favorite features with respective world's famous deep-water fields, such as being located in passive continental margin and feed by a major river system, having organic-rich lacustrine shale as major source rocks, having overlapped layers of deep-water fans,etc. On the other hand, in the deep-water region of northern South China Sea no salt and salt tectonics, and structural traps are less developed. These put forward new challenge to the hydrocarbon exploration in deep-water northern South China Sea.