SPE meeting: Laboratory capabilities and the Halloween Mystery Lab Tour

The Halloween edition of the SPE meeting at DTU Offshore on Thursday, October 29, 2026, will explore this question. Senior Research Scientist Karen Feilberg will introduce DTU Offshore’s laboratory capabilities and show how analytical methods used in research into energy, environmental processes and the subsurface can also be used in other contexts.

Programme

17:00 to 18:00: Social hour with drinks
18:00 to 18:50: Presentation by Karen Feilberg
19:00 to 19:30: Sandwich dinner
19:30 to 20:30: Halloween Mystery Lab Tour

Presentation: “DTU Offshore Lab capabilities: Uses in Energy research, environmental research and crime forensics”

DTU Offshore’s laboratories support both fundamental and applied research. Researchers use them to develop, test and validate methods that improve the efficiency and sustainability of operations in the oil, gas, wind power and CCS industries, while mitigating environmental impacts such as discharges to the sea and emissions to the atmosphere.

The laboratories are equipped to simulate and analyse interactions between industrial activities, the marine environment and the subsurface. In controlled experiments, researchers examine the degradation and behaviour of pollutants in seawater, the dispersion of subsea emissions, and interactions between sediments, biofilms and other marine components. The results provide insight into the fate and transport of materials such as water additives, drilling fluids and lubricants, and inform assessments and mitigation strategies.

The analytical and detection techniques used to trace marine contaminants are also valuable in other disciplines. In forensic science, for example, they can be applied to uncover underlying environmental phenomena or criminal activity. The range of applications of the laboratory’s analytical equipment will be demonstrated during the presentation and highlighted further on the lab tour.

Halloween Mystery Lab Tour

After the presentation and dinner, participants will tour the three floors of DTU Offshore’s laboratories and see how the analytical capabilities introduced earlier in the evening can be applied to a fictional forensic case. A young Gremlin, still in its furry Mogwai stage, has been found dead in the basement of DTU, two days before Halloween. Laboratory test results will be used to determine where it came from and what caused its death through a process of observation, deduction and elimination.