In order to contrast the hydrocarbon generation kinetic characteristics from different types of organic matter (OM), 18 samples from different basins were pyrolyzed using Rock-Eval-II apparatus under the open system. From the experimental results, the curve of hydrocarbon generation rate vs. temperature can be easily obtained, which usually can be used to optimize kinetic parameters (A, E, F) of the hydrocarbon generation model. In this paper, the parallel first-order reaction with a single frequency factor model is selected to describe the hydrocarbon generation kinetic characteristics. The hydrocarbon generation kinetic parameters reveal that the types of compound structures and chemical bonds of the lacustrine facies type I OM are relatively homogeneous, with one dominating activation energy. The types of chemical bonds of the lacustrine facies type II2 OM and the terrestrial facies type III OM are relative complex, with a broad activation energy distribution, and the reaction fraction of the preponderant activation energy drops with the decrease of hydrogen index. The impact of the activation energy distribution spaces on the geological extrapolation of kinetic parameters is also investigated. The results show that it has little effect on the hydrocarbon transformation ratio (TR) and therefore, the parallel first-order reaction model with proper number of activation energies can be better used to describe the hydrocarbon generation process. The geological extrapolation results of 18 samples of kinetic parameters show that the distribution range of the hydrocarbon generation rate of the type I OM is relatively narrow and the hydrocarbon generation curve is smooth. In comparison, the distribution range of the hydrocarbon generation for type II1 and type II2-III OM are quite wide, and the hydrocarbon generation curves have fluctuation phenomena. The distribution range of the hydrocarbon generation rate and the fluctuation phenomena are related to the kinetic parameters of OM; the narrower the activation energy distribution, the narrower the hydrocarbon generation rate distribution, and the smoother the hydrocarbon generation curve, and vice versa.