The aim is to realise the potential of hydropyrolysis (pyrolysis assisted by high hydrogen gas pressures) as a means to provide reliable molecular fingerprints for severely biodegraded oils, contaminated cores, oil-field solids (tar mats and pyrobitumens) and to provide novel information on basin-filling history where the conventional free-biomarker approach fails. This will then facilitate rapid and accurate oil-source and oil-oil correlations to be determined for the first time in ocean-margin regions. The study will establish a firm base to exploit the commercial potential of hydropyrolysis, both in terms of oil exploration through the new correlations with bound biomarker profiles and of characteristic sedimentary organic matter as a far superior technique to py-GC-MS. Indeed, innovative experimental protocols for conducting hydropyrolysis will continue to be developed to have a prototype system ready for future exploitation.