In the past dozen years，microbial enhanced oil recovery（MEOR）technology has boomed mainly for two reasons.First，the application of 16S rRNA-based microbial ecological analysis technology，especially the application of highthroughput sequencing technology has realized the fast and accurate analysis of the microbial community structure and dynamic evolution laws in extreme environments of oil reservoirs. Second，the application of chemical flooding technology dominated by polymer flooding has crossed its peak period，and the number of oil reservoirs suitable for chemical flooding is decreasing. MEOR technology has drawn second attention due to the urgent demand for replacement technology. The development of MOR technology and production requirements have led to the rapid development of theoretical research and field trials of this technology，and its application process has also undergone tremendous changes compared with the previous one. With the expansion of the scale and time of field trials，the mechanism of MEOR technology has been further clarified，and a consensus has been formed with emulsification and gas production as the dominant mechanism. However，the advantages of this technology have not been fully utilized in field application，and the realization of large-scale industrial application still faces many problems，mainly the precise regulation of the microbial ecological function in oil reservoirs and further research and improvement on the supporting technology of microbial oil recovery.