Relevance. The expediency of expanding the use of geochemical survey in searching for hydrocarbon deposits, as an express method for making promising decisions. Aim. To compare the characteristics of hydrocarbon migration from a deposit to the daytime surface, recorded by two methods – subsurface soil analysis and passive concentration, and to show the preferential routes of their migration. Object. Pestsovoe oil and gas field on the Sanskaya area with permafrost rocks in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Methods. Geochemical survey in C₆H₆–C₈H₁₀ arenes using natural passive concentrators in the form of subsurface soils and artificial concentrators. Application of registered hydrocarbon levels on maps containing the distribution of geodynamically stressed zones of fracturing. Results. The authors have jointly determined the concentrations of manifestations on the daytime surface of hydrocarbon migrating from the deposit: benzene and toluene from the analysis of subsoil; benzene, toluene and xylenes in soil gas by passive concentrating. The areal distributions of benzene and toluene, the distributions of the oil-and-gas-bearing index B/T* in the form of the ratio of the benzene concentration to the corrected toluene concentration were constructed. It was found that benzene and toluene area of distributions obtained by two different survey methods correlate positively with each other, however, their nature and information content are different for each arene. Surveying subsurface soil is more informative for toluene: its average maximum in soil (60 ppb) exceeds the maximum obtained from concentrators (38 ppb) by 1.5–2 times. However, the maximum concentration of benzene from soil samples (≈1.6 ppb) is 0.6 times less than similar concentrations from artificial concentrators (2.6 ppb). Distributions of benzene and toluene concentrations in subsurface soils have a mosaic character, and distributions of xylene concentrations from passive concentrators have a point, focal distribution, which is more informative for assessing oil prospects. It was shown that the migration of arenes to the Earth's surface occurs mainly along fracture zones, which, taking into account the physical characteristics of arenes, accompanies diffusion and filtration migration. The confinement of migration to the axes of the geodynamically stressed zones confirms their informativeness in determining oil- and fluid-promising geostructures. A significant advantage of passive concentration is noted according to the criterion of minimizing costs, rapidity and the ability to promptly adjust the survey.