In recent years, as an important part of unconventional resources, the effective development of shale oil has been a key area of research in petroleum engineering. Given the widespread availability and low cost of air, the evaluation of air injection in shale reservoirs is a topic worth exploring. This paper analyzes the production performance of different methods of air injection development in the shale reservoir, including air flooding and air huff and puff (HnP), based on full-diameter core air injection experiments. Meanwhile, the characteristics of the residual oil and produced oil are revealed by forming a systematic evaluation method that includes nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM), and gas chromatographic (GC) analysis. The results show that air flooding development is characterized by early gas breakthrough, long oil production period, and “L” shape oil production decline; while air HnP is characterized by first producing gas and then producing oil, rapid oil production, and high oil recovery efficiency in the first round. Compared with air flooding, the replacement efficiency of the first round of air HnP is significantly higher, demonstrating higher feasibility of air HnP in the early stages of development, although the cumulative recovery of three rounds air HnP (17.17%) is lower than that of air flooding (23.36%). The large pores (T2 > 10 ms) are the main source of air injection recovery, while the residual oil is mainly concentrated in the medium pores (1–10 ms). Air injection development has a higher recovery factor for light components (C15−), resulting in a higher level of heavy components in the residual oil. This paper discusses the feasibility and development effectiveness of air injection in shale oil reservoirs, and its development characteristics are further clarified.

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