Since the difference of physical properties between formation oil and formation water is small,the physical properties change of sand and mudstone affects seismic reflection,and there exists noise of seismic data,it is very difficult to identify oil-bearing sand bodies using seismic data in that it has strong multiple solutions,and hence the successful application cases are very few.Although it is difficult for single hydrocarbon-bearing sands to generate observable difference,hydrocarbon is accumulated in underground space,and seismic data response from multi-hydrocarbon zone could be identified easily.In this paper,the authors propose peak energy sum hydrocarbon detection method.The method first utilizes the variable factor generalized S transform to achieve frequency division,and then analyzes seismic frequency range which highlights the difference between oil and water and determines energy threshold;on such a basis,the peak energy of the hydrocarbon sensitive frequency section is calculated.For high abundance oil-bearing areas,many sets of hydrocarbon reservoirs are developed longitudinally,and hydrocarbon information can be further highlighted by accumulation of peak energy in the longitudinal direction.Therefore,the peak energy sum hydrocarbon detection factor can effectively predict the high abundance of hydrocarbon distribution.The model data test proves that this method is effective.This method was applied in several oilfields in Bohai,and the results of hydrocarbon detection are in good agreement with the hydrocarbon distribution areas obtained by drilling.This method has guided many successful drilling wells and obtained good effects.