High-pressure air injection (HPAI) in light oil reservoirs has proven to be a valuable improved oil recovery (IOR) process and aroused more attention worldwide. In this research, laboratory experiments were performed to study the potential of HPAI application in Keke Ya oilfield (Tarim Basin, China). Test oil and actual reservoir core samples were taken from Keke Ya oilfield, and rock composition was prior analyzed through X-ray method. The thermal behaviors of oil-only, cuttings, and oil-cuttings were studied by thermogravimetry/derivative thermogravimetry (TG/DTG), differential thermal analysis (DTA) tests, and also, rock composition and clay mineral type/relative content effects on light crude oil oxidation behavior were systematically investigated. The results show that Keke Ya oil has a favorable exothermic behavior, exhibiting apparent low-temperature oxidation (LTO), fuel deposition, and high-temperature oxidation (HTO) stages. An extended fuel deposition stage was observed by addition of cuttings. Smectite present in illite/smectite plays a positive role of catalyzing effects for oil oxidation in different reaction regions. In this study, it revealed that smectite is ranked first, illite or chlorite is ranked second, followed by kaolinite, in the aspect of catalytic ability for crude oil oxidation. The Arrhenius model was introduced for kinetics analysis. How these findings will provide guidelines to achieve high-performance HPAI projects is also discussed.