Primary Program
About
Colin Ward is a Principal Fellow in the Oil and Gas Program at KAPSARC, with a comprehensive background in the energy industry, including roles in seismic exploration, refinery design, upstream field development, and consulting. His research focuses on advanced academic analyses of critical energy system challenges, with a recent emphasis on carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), including upstream carbon intensity, CO₂-enhanced oil recovery, blue hydrogen, and blockchain-enabled carbon tracking. His international expertise combines technical, strategic, and academic insights, supporting solutions to global energy and environmental issues.
Publications
09 December 2024
Towards a CCS National Strategy and Roadmap for Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has long been associated with the production and consumption of hydroacrbons. However, with the increasing concerns over climate change and the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the country has started to explore and inves...
14 October 2024
Geothermal Energy – A Rising Powerhouse? A Global Technical Review and Applications for Saudi ArabiaThe Earth’s core, which is as hot as the sun, contains a large amount of thermal energy insulated by impermeable rocks. This energy, totaling 15 million zetta joules, dwarfs traditional energy sources such as coal and gas. However, only a fraction of this energy has been utilize...
01 July 2024
Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) Solutions to Decarbonize LNG: Why, Where and How Much?In 2019, a new product – carbon-neutral LNG – was born. By 2021, the market for this product had grown rapidly. However, in 2022, the number of announcements about the volumes delivered to customers significantly decreased. To a large extent, this decrease was linked to credibility i...
20 November 2023
Is the Shale Oil Rush Over?he California Gold Rush was a time of exuberance and technological development in the mining sector and exhibits significant parallels with shale development that are worth exploring. The easy wins of the pioneers gave way to larger organizations with better funding and technology, s...
14 May 2023
Cost‒Benefit Analysis for Petrochemical Projectsost‒benefit analysis (CBA) has been used to assess investment projects for decades with the aim of quantifying their externalities and potential impacts on social welfare. However, the domain where CBA is applied has been primarily limited to direct public financing in several sector...
06 August 2020
Cooperate or Compete? Insights from Simulating a Global Oil Market with No Residual SupplierStructural changes in the global oil sector are disrupting conventional market dynamics and the roles played by competing and cooperating producers. Industry players are adjusting to the shale (or ‘tight’) oil revolution and the possibility of plateauing or peaking global oil demand....
29 January 2018
Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2 Storage Potential Outside North America: An Economic AssessmentStoring carbon dioxide (CO2 ) in oil reservoirs as part of CO2 -based enhanced oil recovery (CO2 -EOR) can be a cost-effective solution to reduce emissions into the atmosphere. In this paper, we analyze the economics of this option in order to estimate the amount of CO2 that could be...
20 December 2016
Evaluating Uganda's Oil Sector: Estimation of Upstream ProjectsUganda and other countries in Eastern Africa are on the cusp of developing many oil and gas resources, and there is reason for local content to be included in the discussion. As part of a larger research effort at KAPSARC – which includes determining the local capacity for goods and ...
