Kathmandu, October 21

Minister for Industry Nabindra Raj Joshi has said that the country can extract huge volumes of natural gases and utilise them for commercial use if a consistent extraction effort is deployed.

Inaugurating the ‘test production’ of natural gas at Imadol today, Minister Joshi said that commercial production of natural gas is viable and the government would put all its efforts in it.

“The successful test production of natural gas today has proved that producing such gases for commercial use is feasible,” said Joshi, adding that the government will keep extraction of natural gases under high priority and work with the Department of Mines and Geology (DoMG) to begin commercial production of natural gases soon.

On the occasion, Minister Joshi also informed that the government is planning to carry out ‘test production’ of natural gas at Teku.

Though the test production of natural gas at Imadol was successful, it did not seem to be feasible from a commercial point of view.

Researchers, since long, have been saying that Nepal has huge natural gas reserves in Kathmandu and other districts like Mustang and Dailekh. Moreover, a research conducted by Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) has shown that some 310 million cubic metres of natural gas exists in Kathmandu Valley alone, which is enough to meet the demand of thousands of families.