Can a Petroleum Engineering Student Be Expelled for Fabricating Natural Gas Well Deliverability Test Logs?

A university will summarily expel a petroleum or natural gas engineering undergraduate, cancel all reservoir engineering and natural gas production laboratory credits, and report the student to the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) for professional debarment for fabricating natural gas well deliverability backpressure test data, faking Rawlins-Schellhardt deliverability exponent ($n$) and performance coefficient ($C$) logs, or forging natural gas production laboratory instructor verification signatures without performing physical or calibrated numerical gas well flow testing. In petroleum engineering curricula accredited by COREN, natural gas reservoir evaluation—including analyzing multi-rate flow-after-flow backpressure tests, measuring pseudo-critical pressure and temperature properties, determining non-Darcy turbulent gas flow friction factors, and calculating Absolute Open Flow (AOF) potential—represents a life-critical technical competency; fabricating gas well deliverability data subverts gas pipeline network design calculations, risks catastrophic gas wellhead overpressurization, and violates professional engineering ethics.

Departmental laboratory coordinators and natural gas engineering testing examiners utilize automated pressure gauge data logger records to detect fabricated deliverability submissions.

1. The natural gas engineering course lecturer audits submitted practical portfolios and identifies mathematically idealized log-log deliverability plots that ignore high-velocity gas turbulence and non-Darcy skin effects.
2. The chief laboratory technologist checks the natural gas reservoir engineering laboratory sign-in register and confirms that the student never signed out gas well testing software licenses, high-pressure gas flowmeters, or deadweight testers.
3. The technologist checks the digital simulation server audit trail and confirms that no gas wellhead pressure transient runs were logged under the student’s assigned workstation MAC address.
4. The student is formally issued an academic query requiring them to perform a live Rawlins-Schellhardt backpressure analysis on raw field pressure data and derive Absolute Open Flow (AOF) potential.
5. Inability to explain pseudo-pressure transformations or replicate deliverability derivations leads to a formal charge of scientific fabrication and academic fraud.
6. The Head of Department transmits an investigative dossier to the Faculty of Engineering Board and the University Central Student Disciplinary Committee (SDC).
7. The student appears before the disciplinary committee to defend their submissions under constitutional principles of fair hearing.
8. The University Senate considers the committee’s findings and ratifies an order of rustication or summary expulsion, notifying COREN to bar future professional licensure.

Acquiring hands-on competency in natural gas deliverability analysis is essential for petroleum engineers who will design offshore gas production facilities, manage liquefied natural gas (LNG) feedstreams, and optimize commercial gas field development.

• Standardized natural gas engineering laboratory manual with approved gas well deliverability testing protocols.
• Raw bench workbook recording shut-in reservoir pressures ($P_R$), flowing wellhead pressures ($P_{wf}$), gas flow rates ($Q_g$ in MSCFD), and gas specific gravities.
• Natural gas laboratory sign-in register confirming equipment allocation and workstation usage.
• Plotted log-log deliverability curves displaying squared pressure differences ($Delta P^2$) versus gas flow rates with calculated AOF potentials.

Students must record actual experimental measurements honestly, accounting for gas compressibility factor ($Z$) variations and pipeline friction losses, rather than manufacturing idealized deliverability data.

Under COREN professional regulations and university examination codes, fabricating natural gas production testing data is classified as severe academic fraud, carrying mandatory expulsion and total debarment from the engineering profession nationwide.

Maintaining rigorous laboratory ethics ensures that petroleum engineering diplomates and graduates develop sound technical judgement required to design and manage safe, efficient, and high-performing natural gas production systems.