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Due to the precipitous dropping oil price, air injection becomes advantageous to other gas flooding techniques as a result of the low cost. Therefore, this work targeted a light oil reservoir and comprehensively investigated the potential of air injection in this reservoir using experimental arid numerical simulation, from which some new insights into high pressure air injection were recognized. Oxidation kinetics of the crude oil were first established using Thermal Gravity Analysis (TG)/Differential Thermal Gravity (DIG), and further validated through a set of history matching. The results indicate that the intense oxidation reaction consumed a great volume of oxygen forming only CO2. Temperature peak occurred after reacting 23 h, revealing that the oxidation reaction is an exothermic process under reservoir conditions and spontaneous combustion might take place. Reservoir dip angle is a crucial parameter governing the oil production and updip injection is generally suggested. Earlier air injection leads to more noticeable incremental temperature effect and also higher ultimate recovery. Air injection seems notably appropriate for rhythm reservoirs. Given a mature reservoir, high-permeability zone would cause gas breakthrough and thus considerably detract the air injection performance. Temperature-resistant polymer gel or foam is suggested to plug thief zones promoting oxidation reactions and air sweep efficiency. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.