Abstract This paper has investigated the water holdup and the pressure gradient of water-lubricated transport of high-viscosity oil flow in horizontal pipes. Experimental results on the water holdup and the pressure gradient of water-lubricated high-viscosity oil two-phase flow in a horizontal 1 in. pipe were discussed. Models for the prediction of the water holdup and/or the pressure gradient of core flow or water-lubricated flow were reviewed and evaluated. It was found that the water holdup of the water-lubricated flow is not only closely related to the input water volume fraction but also the degree of the oil phase eccentricity which is attributed to the oil phase Froude number. This can explain the inconsistency of the experimental results with regard to the relationship between the water holdup and the input water volume fraction in the literature. The applicability of the existing empirical or mechanistic models of water-lubricated high-viscosity oil flow were discussed and demonstrated. A modified correlation to the water holdup correlation of Arney et al. (1993) which was shown to be exclusively applicable for concentric core flow was introduced for stable water-lubricated flow, including both concentric and eccentric core flows. This correlation was evaluated and a fair applicability was shown. The accuracy of different models for the prediction of the pressure gradient of water-lubricated transport of high-viscosity oil was demonstrated to be not high in general. This is closely associated with the difficulty in accurately accounting for the influence of oil fouling on the pressure gradient.