The Altun fault, a famous tremendous sinistral strike-slip fault in NW China, is composed mainly of the Altun,master fault several secondary subhorizontal, sinistral, strike-slip faults and oblique faults. The relationship between master and secondary structures may be explained by a simple shear model based on the concept of "Riedel flaking". There are several basins in the Altun region. The Xorkol basin is one of the typical Cenozoic strike-slip pull-apart basins related to strike-slip faulting in the Altun region. Other basins, such as the Tula Basin and Dunhuang Basin, were Jurassic half graben-like extensiotial basins, and now are transpressional basins resulting from reworking of the strike-slip of the Altun fault. On the basis of a petroleum geological analyses, this paper proposes that the Tula basin and Dunhuang basin (especially in the Aksay depression ) are favorable for hydrocarbon exploration.