North Africa region experienced extensional and compressive tectonic movement’s reformation during the pan-African, alpine and hercynian periods, and passed through the complex basin evolution process which formed the pan-African basement, early Palaeozoic stable passive continental margin evolution, late Paleozoic Foreland evolution, Mesozoic rift evolution and Cenozoic reversal,and then caused the current western Paleozoic and east-central Mesozoic-Cenozoic petroleum system which are mutually uncorrelated in the plane. This paper systematically analyzed the geological characteristics of two big petroleum system and put forward the exploration potential targets, pointed out that, under the cover of Silurian-Carboniferous Acacus petroleum group, the Devonian Tadrart group and the Triassic thick evaporated salt, in ancient uplift and nearby unconformity trap are main exploration potential targets of west basin Paleozoic petroleum system; moreover, the fault and lithologic trap near the graben and horst and deep cretaceous sandbody are the main exploration potential targets of east-central basin Mesozoic-Cenozoic petroleum system, and the study has certain theoretical significance and practical value to know oil reservoir distribution rules so as to improve the success rate of exploration in North Africa.