In engineering practice, the corrosion of some national significant marine infrastructures such as the pipelines of offshore oil-gas exploration and the fueling systems of ships usually occur under the oil-containing conditions and is closely related to serious microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC). The knowledge about the biodegradation mechanisms of hydrocarbon in marine environment is the essential to understand the MIC mechanisms. The work reviewed the microbial degradation mechanisms and corresponding microbes in oil-containing marine environment, as well as different features under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The electron-accepting process was a key step in microbial degradation. The energy stored in the hydrocarbon was transferred into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that was easier to be utilized by microbes in the form of chemical bond. Oxygen acted as electron acceptors under aerobic conditions while nitrate, ferric ion, sulfate and carbon dioxide accepted electrons under anoxic conditions. The degradation of hydrocarbon stimulated the formation of sulfide, so MIC was dominant in oil-containing environment. In addition, the intermediate metabolites during degradation of hydrocarbonsuch as the fatty acids also caused MIC. However, the systematical studies on the functions of microbial communities as a whole and the corrosion mechanisms of steel infrastructuresin marine environment are still scarce. The microbial molecular techniques based on high-throughput sequencing are expected to become one of effective methods to solve these problems.