High Cost Environment Research Articles

Developing innovation capability in a mass production organization

Mass production firms in high labor cost environments need to develop a capability of continuous innovation to survive in the global marketplace. This need is complicated by the “productivity dilemma”; that a focus on efficiency inhibits innovative activity. Operations management literature suggests that resolution of this dilemma is achieved through “organizational ambidexterity,” balancing improvement (exploitation) and innovation (exploration). Building upon current theory, this article uses case study research to illustrate how improvement and innovation capabilities evolved, and how ambidexterity was achieved in an auto parts manufacturing organization, as it implemented novel assembly processes over a 4-year period. Results show how capabilities improve by altering underlying routines as a result of experiential learning, and that ambidexterity is achieved as a temporal sequencing among different levels within the organization. Developing innovation capability in a mass production organization requires organizational alignment between the Management, Engineering, and Production groups, as each has a specific role in the process.

One-Trip Multizone Sand-Control-Completion System in the Gulf of Mexico Lower Tertiary

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper OTC 27183, “Current State of the One-Trip Multizone Sand-Control-Completion System and the Conundrum Faced in the Gulf of Mexico Lower Tertiary,” by Bruce Techentien, Tommy Grigsby, and Thomas Frosell, Halliburton, prepared for the 2016 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 2–5 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Copyright 2016 Offshore Technology Conference. Reproduced by permission. This paper provides perspective on the current state of multizone completion technology and issues encountered in the industry with developing a system that offers increased capabilities to meet the increasing challenges presented by the Lower Tertiary in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). The multizone technology has proved to be an enabler for cost-efficient completions in the shallow-well environment and in the high-cost ultradeepwater environment requiring high-rate fracture-stimulation treatments. Lower Tertiary GOM The Lower Tertiary play is south and west of the Miocene area in the GOM and is, consequently, in deeper water. The Lower Tertiary is located approximately 175 miles offshore and is estimated at 80 miles wide and up to 300 miles long. Water depths are from 5,000 to 10,000 ft. Production targets are at depths of 10,000 to 30,000 ft subsea. The Tertiary trend is from 66 million to 38 million years old. Within the Lower Tertiary, the Lower Wilcox portion presents sheet to amalgamated-sheet sands considered to be part of a regional basin floor fan system. The Late Paleocene to Early Eocene (Wilcox equivalent) reservoirs are considered to be laterally extensive sheet sands that were deposited in deep water. These reservoirs are distributed across an area largely covered by the allochthonous Sigsbee salt canopy. It is this canopy that causes additional problems beyond merely the water depth and the well depth required to reach the reservoirs. These exploration plays depend on understanding the updip fluvial/deltaic stratigraphic architecture and the potential for partitioning of reservoir-quality sandstones across the depositional shelf into the slope and basin floor environments. The Lower Tertiary is estimated to contain up to 15 billion bbl of oil. Current State of Multizone Technology The Generation IV multizone system has been deployed successfully in the Lower Tertiary by multiple operators. To the authors’ knowledge, the multistage completion system and enhanced single-trip multizone fracturing systems had been installed in 10 wells as of the summer of 2015, with additional well installations planned. These systems are rated to 10,000 psi, and the enhanced single-trip multizone tool system offering an open-hole variant was installed in one five-zone completion.

Phosphorene Co‐catalyst Advancing Highly Efficient Visible‐Light Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

AbstractTransitional metals are widely used as co‐catalysts boosting photocatalytic H2 production. However, metal‐based co‐catalysts suffer from high cost, limited abundance and detrimental environment impact. To date, metal‐free co‐catalyst is rarely reported. Here we for the first time utilized density functional calculations to guide the application of phosphorene as a high‐efficiency metal‐free co‐catalyst for CdS, Zn0.8Cd0.2S or ZnS. Particularly, phosphorene modified CdS shows a high apparent quantum yield of 34.7 % at 420 nm. This outstanding activity arises from the strong electronic coupling between phosphorene and CdS, as well as the favorable band structure, high charge mobility and massive active sites of phosphorene, supported by computations and advanced characterizations, for example, synchrotron‐based X‐ray absorption near edge spectroscopy. This work brings new opportunities to prepare highly‐active, cheap and green photocatalysts.

Technical note: Option-based costing and the volatility portfolio

It has been clearly established that a cost premium for responsiveness may be justified for profitable time-sensitive products, and that this cost premium may suffice to render production in a high-cost environment competitive. Time-insensitive products considered in isolation seldom justify a cost premium, leading many decision makers to conclude that their production does not belong in a high-cost environment. This leads to a manufacturing-location decision in which profitable and time-sensitive products are produced in a high-cost environment and time-insensitive products are transferred to a low-cost environment. Responsiveness, however, requires a capacity buffer that provides the option to meet a demand peak for a profitable, time-sensitive product. Leftover capacity can then be ideally deployed to manufacture time-insensitive products to stock. We propose that the cost of the capacity buffer be considered as an option cost and assigned to the time-sensitive product: “option-based costing”. We then demonstrate use of demand volatility to create a portfolio of products that are time sensitive and insensitive to generate profit and increase competitiveness. Option-based costing combined with a volatility portfolio reveals opportunities to produce competitively in high-cost environments that have typically been considered unfeasible.

Costing in Radiology and Health Care: Rationale, Relativity, Rudiments, and Realities.

Costs direct decisions that influence the effectiveness of radiology in the care of patients on a daily basis. Yet many radiologists struggle to harness the power of cost measurement and cost management as a critical path toward establishing their value in patient care. When radiologists cannot articulate their value, they risk losing control over how imaging is delivered and supported. In the United States, recent payment trends directing value-based payments for bundles of care advance the imperative for radiology providers to articulate their value. This begins with the development of an understanding of the providers' own costs, as well as the complex interrelationships and imaging-associated costs of other participants across the imaging value chain. Controlling the costs of imaging necessitates understanding them at a procedural level and quantifying the costs of delivering specific imaging services. Effective product-level costing is dependent on a bottom-up approach, which is supported through recent innovations in time-dependent activity-based costing. Once the costs are understood, they can be managed. Within the high fixed cost and high overhead cost environment of health care provider organizations, stakeholders must understand the implications of misaligned top-down cost management approaches that can both paradoxically shift effort from low-cost workers to much costlier professionals and allocate overhead costs counterproductively. Radiology's engagement across a broad spectrum of care provides an excellent opportunity for radiology providers to take a leading role within the health care organizations to enhance value and margin through principled and effective cost management. Following a discussion of the rationale for measuring costs, this review contextualizes costs from the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders (relativity), discusses core concepts in how costs are classified (rudiments), presents common and improved methods for measuring costs in health care, and discusses how cost management strategies can either improve or hinder high-value health care (realities). © RSNA, 2017 Online supplemental material is available for this article.

Lessons from seru production on manufacturing competitively in a high cost environment

High capital and labor costs, coupled with high rates of technological and competitive change, present challenges for manufacturers in developed countries, often spurring them to offshore production to low cost sources. However, the electronics industry provides an exception to this trend, where dynamic, high cost conditions have given rise to a new production system – seru – a cellular assembly approach. Seru evolved as an alternative to lean systems approaches, manifesting important differentiated system design choices that appear to offer promise for manufacturing in dynamic, high-cost markets. This paper reports the results of in-depth, longitudinal case studies of two electronics giants who have implemented seru. The case studies describe seru's fundamental extensions to, and departures from, lean production, agile production, and group technology-based cellular manufacturing. We explain how Sony and Canon have applied seru to improve productivity, quality, and flexibility in ways that have enabled them to remain competitive. In addition, our findings elaborate the theory of swift, even flow, with implications for future research of trade-offs related to production efficiency, responsiveness, and competitiveness in high-cost, technologically dynamic markets.

Why locate manufacturing in a high-cost country? A case study of 35 production location decisions

In this paper, we examine in detail 35 final assembly location decisions to gain understanding of the manufacturing location decision from strategy and economic policy perspectives. We are particularly interested in the decision to locate final assembly specifically in a high-cost (high GDP per capita) environment. In contrast with the earlier literature, we focus not just on manufacturing activities themselves, but also the key linkages between production, market, supply chain, and product development. These linkages are examined using three key concepts from theories of organization design: formalization, specificity, and coupling. Using these concepts, an analysis of the micro-structure of each case reveals important commonalities that inform our understanding of location decisions. We conclude by discussing the policy implications of our findings.

Specialist-generalist model of body temperature regulation can be applied at the intraspecific level.

According to theoretical predictions, endothermic homeotherms can be classified as either thermal specialists or thermal generalists. In high cost environments, thermal specialists are supposed to be more prone to using facultative heterothermy than generalists. We tested this hypothesis at the intraspecific level using male laboratory mice (C57BL/cmdb) fasted under different thermal conditions (20 and 10°C) and for different time periods (12-48 h). We predicted that variability of body temperature (Tb) and time spent with Tb below normothermy would increase with the increase of environmental demands (duration of fasting and cold). To verify the above prediction, we measured Tb and energy expenditure of fasted mice. We did not record torpor bouts but we found that variations in Tb and time spent in hypothermia increased with environmental demands. In response to fasting, mice also decreased their energy expenditure. Moreover, animals that showed more precise thermoregulation when fed had more variable Tb when fasted. We postulate that the prediction of the thermoregulatory generalist-specialist trade-off can be applied at the intraspecific level, offering a valid tool for identifying mechanistic explanations of the differences in animal responses to variations in energy supply.

Planning and reorganising quality management organisations – an empirical analysis of current practice

In order to successfully compete in a high cost environment, enterprises must be highly adaptable to increased market dynamics and customer expectations, as well as shortened product lifecycles. Environmental changes have an immediate effect on organisational structures, making it more and more difficult to master the three basic organisational challenges: granting stability, efficiency and flexibility to put strategy into practice. This results in an organisational problem for quality management, namely that in order to assure high-quality products as a main competitive factor, quality management organisation must be planned and implemented according to dynamic surrounding conditions. Thus, planning and implementing quality-related processes and organisational structures has developed into an essential managerial discipline. This paper presents challenges, motives and success factors of planning and reorganising quality management organisations. An online survey on this topic was conducted between 20 November and 3 December 2014 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Overall, 411 answers were collected. The survey primarily included questions with alternative or selectable answers and, where suitable, a five-stage Likert scale was additionally applied. The gathered data were analysed with descriptive statistical methods and hypothesis testing. A long-term-oriented, pro-active planning approach towards quality structures was found to have a significant impact on appropriate QMO capabilities. However, a gap was discovered between the valuated importance of this active planning approach and current corporate practice. Divisional QMO structures were found superior over functional or matrix structures in terms of capability, planning, and reorganisation. Enterprises that aimed to improve product quality, as well as process quality, and to reduce interface were more successful in their QM reorganisations than those that aimed for cost cutting. The use of certain planning tools also increased success in this matter. Novel technologies and products as well as corporate growth were found to be the biggest challenges. Existing studies focus on general organisational structures. Due to the comparably high number of interfaces and strong product relation of QMO, planning and implementation activities pose a distinct challenge that requires specialised attention. Digitisation will increase the future number of reorganisations in manufacturing. As quality is one of the most important factors for contemporary entrepreneurial success, quality managers must be scientifically supported in order to close the gap between the importance of long-term planning and current practice. This paper contributes with an in-depth analysis.

To Lead or to Follow? Market Entry and Pricing Strategies for SaaS Provider

Software as a service (SaaS) is becoming an attractive alternative to the on-premises software, due to its distinct advantage of lower implementation cost over traditional software. However, as an early entrant in the industry, the on-premises software provider has potential to retain its market share by locking in its customers with high switching costs. We incorporate consumer heterogeneous cost sensitivity into the game-theoretical model of a duopoly with sequential entry. We investigate the market equilibrium in price-setting strategies and characterize the conditions under which one provider acts as leader and the other acts as follower and under which both providers adopt simultaneous-move strategy. We find that it is not always optimal for the providers to set prices simultaneously. In a low switching cost environment, the unique equilibrium is the incumbent being leader and later entrant SaaS provider being follower. If the switching cost is in the middle range, the simultaneous-move strategy is dominated and the incumbent-follower/entrant-leader situation represents the unique Nash equilibrium, which results in a Stackelberg equilibrium in prices. In a high switching cost environment, it is never a good choice for the SaaS provider to be leader. Our finding also suggests that the SaaS provider should act as follower instead of leader if it expects to gain a market-share advantage.

Design-Based Innovation for Manufacturing Firm Success in High-Cost Operating Environments

The manufacturing sector is increasingly looking to innovation to ensure productivity growth, especially in high-cost operating environments to achieve non-price based competition. The paper begins with an overview of regulatory, technological and consumer trends and developments impacting manufacturing. It considers the shifting balance between fragmenting and concentrating forces of global supply chains, and how manufacturing firms themselves are changing. This overview is followed by a discussion of the pivotal constituents of success for firms operating in high-cost environments, and concludes with the fundamental importance of innovation as a basis for success.The paper then discusses value creation, value appropriation, and design-based innovation, and argues that manufacturers need to understand key differences between these paradigms. In particular, the difference between art and design is articulated, to avoid an otherwise common confusion between the two. The importance of an inter- and trans-disciplinary approach to innovation is emphasized, including the use of four value creation strategies—science and technology, design, art, and reverse-hermeneutic innovation.The paper concludes that the design-based innovation paradigm is increasingly important within the manufacturing industry, but that its benefit can only be maximized if it is integrated with the other three value-creating approaches to innovation.

Australian LNG: the cost myths and truths

In recent years the media has published articles relating to the high cost of doing business in Australia. The impacts of low productivity, high-labour costs, and poor performance have all been highlighted as ailments with Australia and within the LNG (construction) industry in particular. This has led to views that Australia is a high-cost environment and Australian LNG is expensive. The numbers that are often quoted appear to support these views, however they overlook—and sometimes mask—aspects of individual projects that are important to understand before making any generic pronouncements about the competitiveness of the Australian industry in general. This extended abstract: Exposes the inadequacies of the general comparisons that have been made in the recent past. Demonstrates the actual impact of several identified issues. Demonstrates the importance of decisions made early in the project development cycle by respective owners on the projects and project costs. Identifies the differences and similarities in development and costs of LNG projects in Australia compared to other areas of the world, in particular the US. Examines the impact of lack of collaboration.

The intellectual capital needs of a transitioning economy

Purpose – Developed economies with high-cost environments face industrial transitions from scale-based manufacturing (MAN) to knowledge, technology and intangible asset-based sectors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes in employment and value-adding profiles of transitioning industry sectors in Australia and discuss the implications for policy that influences the intellectual capital (IC) profile of industrial sectors in transition. Design/methodology/approach – The approach borrowed concepts from the firm-level strategic management literature and applied them to a macro level of industry analysis. In this paper the authors examine the transitions in the Australian economy which, due to a rising cost base, is experiencing a decline in its value chain-oriented MAN sector. The authors contrast four industry sectors with the MAN sector and examine the different value creation models. Findings – The findings clearly show how the contribution to employment and value added (termed Economic Value Contribution ) of the different sectors vary. The authors extend these findings to a discussion on policy and the dimensions of IC that may have a role to play in facilitating transitions within an economy. The main conclusion is that a more rapid transition and higher value may be created if innovation and entrepreneurship are facilitated by targeted policies in transitioning sector. Research limitations/implications – This work is based on a single country analysis of selected industry sectors. Further work needs to be done across many more countries to contrast the findings across nations/regions that differ in industrial complexity and to refine the analytical framework to improve construct validity and increase analytical power. Practical implications – This work has implications for policy-makers facing the challenges of a transitioning economy, whether national or regional. Governments that are hands-on with respect to interventions to salvage and/or extend the life of sectors are at risk of missing opportunities to build the capacities and capabilities of emerging sectors while those governments that are hands-off, deferring to market mechanisms, risk transitions that are too little and/or too late to maintain a national or regional competitiveness. Originality/value – To the authors knowledge, this is the first attempt to integrate the specific firm-level strategic management perspectives, used in this paper, with the macro-policy level to examine industry sectors with the twin metrics of economic productivity and employment in transitioning economies.

Why the wait? Shale gas exploration review and look ahead

Despite unconventional targets being recognised across many Australian sedimentary basins and the Energy Information Administration (EIA), estimating a technically recoverable shale gas resource of >400 tcf in Australia, there have been no definitive tests that prove that any of these potential plays will flow gas at commercial rates. There has, however, been a number of technical successes reported from both shale gas and basin centred gas plays. This extended abstract reviews select plays from both frontier and mature basins across Australia, including basins where Origin is actively exploring or appraising unconventional gas plays—the Perth, Cooper and Beetaloo basins. The technical challenges vary from play to play, but many of the above ground challenges are not play specific. To advance the industry, Origin and other companies will have to demonstrate a resource sufficiency that is economic in a high cost environment like Australia, while maintaining a positive relationship with communities. In its expansion into the NT, through its interest in the Beetaloo Basin, Origin has the benefit of 20 years' experience dealing with complex stakeholders and environmental challenges through its CSG development projects in Queensland. This experience is invaluable in advising best practices for engaging with local communities, landholders, traditional owners, and regulatory and government bodies. For the technically-minded asset development teams charged with exploring unconventional plays in frontier basins, where stakeholders are unfamiliar with oil and gas development projects, new skills are required that need deep organisational support.

Borehole Imaging Technology Visualizes Photorealistically in Oil-Based Muds

Technology Update To estimate reserves, optimize well recovery, and place future development wells more accurately, operators require increasingly detailed understanding of complex oil and gas reservoirs. High-resolution geological data from the borehole— core samples and wireline microresistivity images—are essential to fully characterize reservoir architecture, guide and constrain reservoir models, and make timely decisions with precision and confidence. In unconventional resource plays, for example, geologists need to observe complex natural fracture systems, measure fracture density and direction, determine in-situ stresses, and calculate pressures required to initiate and propagate optimal hydraulic fracturing. In high-cost deepwater environments, exploration teams need to interpret a wide variety of sedimentary facies. Reservoirs often consist of thinly laminated sands or channels, which demand high-definition methods for visualization and interpretation. Typically, deepwater formations exhibit very low resistivities— from 1 ohm-m in shales to as low as 0.2 ohm-m in water-bearing sands. Operators often use whole cores to identify subtle sedimentary facies, but cores can be expensive and time-consuming to acquire. Thus, core samples are usually obtained only in select wells and in the most critical intervals. The resulting lack of geological detail can adversely affect reservoir analysis, interpretation, and modeling. On the other hand, microelectrical borehole images can be acquired continuously over the openhole interval at any depth or in any formation, with relative ease. Until recently, high-definition borehole imaging has been possible only in electrically conductive water-based muds (WBM). However, most deepwater wells and many unconventional shale wells today are drilled with high-performance, nonconductive oil-based muds (OBM). Legacy OBM borehole imaging tools, which were introduced in the last decade, are a significant technical advancement over the preceding dipmeter tools but still exhibit certain limitations. For example, spatial image resolution in OBM is nowhere near the quality obtained from WBM imagers. The lack of circumferential coverage of the borehole leaves large gaps that must be filled by inference.

Research and Development Priorities for Sugar Industry of China: Recent Research Highlights

The major purpose of sugarcane production is for sugar in China. The major limits for sugar productivity include abiotic and biotic factors. Drought is the most important abiotic limit while smut and borer are the most important biotic constraints. In practice, high nitrogen fertilizer input causes high production cost and agricultural environment pollution, which also has been paid high attention to research and development priorities for sugar industry of China include breeding highly productive, high sugar, strongly resistant and nitrogen efficient sugarcane cultivars by conventional and biotechnological approaches, developing low cost and efficient cultivation technologies for sugarcane production, crossing parents innovation by utilizing wild germplasm. Whole sugarcane genome sequencing, proteome analysis and biological nitrogen fixation research are also under way.

Ethnic Divisions and Production in Firms *

Abstract A body of literature suggests that ethnic heterogeneity limits economic growth. This article provides microeconometric evidence on the direct effect of ethnic divisions on productivity. In team production at a plant in Kenya, an upstream worker supplies and distributes flowers to two downstream workers, who assemble them into bunches. The plant uses an essentially random rotation process to assign workers to positions, leading to three types of teams: (i) ethnically homogeneous teams, and teams in which (ii) one or (iii) both downstream workers belong to a tribe in rivalry with the upstream worker’s tribe. I find strong evidence that upstream workers undersupply non-coethnic downstream workers (vertical discrimination) and shift flowers from non-coethnic to coethnic downstream workers (horizontal discrimination), at the cost of lower own pay and total output. A period of ethnic conflict following Kenya’s 2007 election led to a sharp increase in discrimination. In response, the plant began paying the two downstream workers for their combined output (team pay). This led to a modest output reduction in (i) and (iii) teams—as predicted by standard incentive models—but an increase in output in (ii) teams, and overall. Workers’ behavior before conflict, during conflict, and under team pay is predicted by a model of taste-based discrimination. My findings suggest that interethnic rivalries lower allocative efficiency in the private sector, that the economic costs of ethnic diversity vary with the political environment, and that in high-cost environments firms are forced to adopt “second best” policies to limit discrimination distortions.

International multidisciplinary consensus conference on multimodality monitoring: ICU processes of care.

There is an increased focus on evaluating processes of care, particularly in the high acuity and cost environment of intensive care. Evaluation of neurocritical-specific care and evidence-based protocol implementation are needed to effectively determine optimal processes of care and effect on patient outcomes. General quality measures to evaluate intensive care unit (ICU) processes of care have been proposed; however, applicability of these measures in neurocritical care populations has not been established. A comprehensive literature search was conducted for English language articles from 1990 to August 2013. A total of 1,061 articles were reviewed, with 145 meeting criteria for inclusion in this review. Care in specialized neurocritical care units or by neurocritical teams can have a positive impact on mortality, length of stay, and in some cases, functional outcome. Similarly, implementation of evidence-based protocol-directed care can enhance outcome in the neurocritical care population. There is significant evidence to support suggested quality indicators for the general ICU population, but limited research regarding specific use in neurocritical care. Quality indices for neurocritical care have been proposed; however, additional research is needed to further validate measures.

Welfare Effects of Paid for Prioritization Services: A Matching Model with Non-Uniform Quality of Service

We develop a stylized two-sided model of the local broadband Internet market where prices are used to facilitate “interactions” between the Broadband Internet Service Provider’s (BISP) subscribers and Content and Application Service Providers (CASPS), as well as the priority (i.e., speed) of those interactions. The model is used to evaluate the welfare and distributional effects of several “paid for prioritization” services offered by a BISP. The evaluation is conducted across a variety of economic environments to test the robustness of the welfare effects. The environments are generated by defining parameters that determine whether CASP valuations for interactions are either greater than or less than comparable valuations of subscribers, whether the BISP operates in a high cost or low cost environment, and whether linear or nonlinear pricing strategies are used on the BISP platform. Analysis demonstrates that in the majority of the examined economic environments, the BISP’s resources are more efficiently allocated when it is allowed to charge a uniform (non-discriminatory) price for priority on both the subscriber and CASP sides of the market. The efficiency gain is most pronounced when CASP valuations for interactions are high relative to subscriber valuations, when priority service is priced on an interaction basis, and when total costs are low. In a non-linear “data cap” pricing environment in which CASPs are only able to obtain priority service on an all or nothing basis for each of their subscriber interactions, priority pricing does not enhance market efficiency unless CASP values exceed subscriber values and total costs are low.

Waterflooding Proves Useful in Deepwater Gulf of Mexico Overpressured Turbidites

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper OTC 24111, ’Water Injection in Deepwater, Overpressured Turbidites in the Gulf of Mexico: Past, Present, and Future,’ by X. Li and K.K. Beadall, SPE, Knowledge Reservoir; S. Duan, SPE, Chevron Corporation; and J.R. Lach, SPE, Knowledge Reservoir, prepared for the 2013 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 6-9 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Good primary recovery, high drilling cost, and facility limitations mean water injection is not commonly used in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. However, waterflooding can supply additional reservoir energy for producing substantial quantities of oil trapped by limited displacement drive and poor sweep efficiency. This paper is a detailed examination of Pleistocene-to-Upper- Miocene turbidite reservoirs in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico under water injection. Waterflooding strategies have proved to be highly effective in achieving good incremental oil recovery from these reservoirs. Introduction So far, oil and gas production in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico is mostly from Neogene (Pleistocene, Pliocene, and Upper Miocene) reservoirs. The Neogene reservoirs can be characterized broadly as overpressured, unconsolidated, and highly compacting, with high permeability and containing black undersaturated oil of medium gravity with moderate gas/ oil ratio and some aquifer support. Although waterflooding is a mature technology, few water-injection projects have been conducted in the Neogene reservoirs because they exhibit good primary recoveries, exist in high-cost offshore environments, and are relatively small. In some of these fields, a limited volume of water was injected.