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Typical values of residual oil and connate water saturations indicate that ultimate displacement efficiency should normally be between 50 and 80% of the contacted oil in a waterflood. This range is substantially greater than the 30% average recovery efficiency observed in waterfloods; it is also greater than the recovery efficiency in most enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) projects (see Sections 1 through 4). Of course, the reason that displacement efficiency is higher than recovery efficiency is that not all the oil is contacted by the displacing agent. This effect is present in oil recovery Eq. 2.88 where the displacement efficiency is multiplied by the volumetric sweep efficiency EV. On the basis of these approximate figures, the volumetric sweep efficiency is between 40 and 60% for a waterflood. For many EOR processes, it can be much lower, and for others, achieving a high EV is a primary design objective.

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