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Mineral gas deposit of 80.70 billion cubic metres has been confirmed at Bhairabi Rural Municipality-1 of Dailekh district.

This is confirmed in the final exploration report submitted to the Government of Nepal by the Chinese Company, China Geological Survey.

Spokesperson at the Department of Mines and Geology (DoMG) Dharma Raj Khadka stated that the storage data was released after a comprehensive study by the Chinese team.

In the preliminary report made public earlier, it was estimated that there could be 1.12 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the area.

He said further testing and the final study have proved larger quantities of gas than previously estimated.

The DoMG has stated even if storage is confirmed, the actual information about its commercial production and extraction capacity will only be obtained after 'well testing'.

Spokesperson Khadka said, “So far, we have only determined the size of the storage. Until the well testing is carried out, it is not possible to finalize how much gas can be extracted and which technology would be suitable.”

According to him, in the next phase, other equipment will be used at the 'drilled' site to break the rock or displace the natural gas.