The oxidation into MgO of an industrial Al-Mg 5% alloy in the liquid state has been studied at 700 degreesC by thermogravimetry, under controlled oxygen partial pressure. Since the kinetic curves were not reproducible, it was not possible to obtain directly from them the variations of the areic conversion rate (mol of MgO s(-1) m(-2)) versus the oxygen partial pressure. Therefore, it has been necessary to use a method based on the isolation method, which allowed us to overcome the problems of non-reproducibility of the curves. It was found that the areic rate of growth of MgO decreases when the oxygen pressure increases. A reaction mechanism in elementary steps has been proposed to account for these results, involving two competitive oxygen adsorptions on the MgO surface.