Abstract: In recent years a lot of studies have been carried out on reservoir bitumen.The paper introduces some new advances of reservoir bitumen,including the evolution of its definition,occurrence,H/C atomic ratio,reflectance,biomarker and origin.Presently when studying maturation,oil and source rock correlation and gas and source rock correlation in the exploration of petroleum,reservoir bitumen is usually used.And the main problems are analyzed in this paper.In the end,the author points out what is and will be the emphasis for reservoir bitumen research at present and in the future.