Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
The Chinese team has finally extracted a huge quantity of petrol in Dailekh.
Fact
No, viral video is misleading as the exploration work is still underway.
Even as the petroleum exploration work is underway in the Panchakoshi region of Dailekh district, a video claiming that finally a Chinese team has extracted such a huge amount of petrol in Dailekh is going viral on TikTok.
The petroleum exploration project under Nepal government’s Department of Mines and Geology and the China Geological Survey and Xibu Drilling Engineering Company have been jointly carrying the drilling work as part of the petroleum exploration. The project is the aid of the Chinese government’s aid for Oil and Gas Resources Project.
Against this backdrop, TikTok user @mohangadal6 posted a video showing footage of drilling works being conducted. Tex superimposed on the video reads, “Finally, petrol was extracted in Dailekh. Petrol will be extracted from the other four places.” Audio accompanying the video says, “At last China successfully extracted such a huge amount of petrol in Dailekh. A team of Chinese experts reveal that it is not only in Dailekh but there could be petrol deposits in every district of Nepal.”
The video posted on July 15 has garnered 29.8k likes, 1797 users have liked it and 581 people have commented until the time of filing this article. The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker split the video into several key-frames and reverse searches on them. A search led us to a video, dated July 11, 2024, published on the YouTube channel named Mero Pokhara TV. We found that the image and the footage carried in the viral video exactly matched the viral video.
We, then, checked for media reports regarding the status of petroleum exploration in Nepal. We found several media reports regarding Chinese support to Nepal for oil exploration in Dailekh published mostly earlier this year in May.
A news article, May 29, 2024, published on Global Times, reported that a team of about 20 Chinese engineers and 45 Nepali technicians began a six-month drilling campaign in Dailekh, Nepal in May. The report further noted that the drilling is expected to reach as deep as four kilometers below ground to determine oil and gas reserves.
Further, we reached out to Dinesh Nepal, Deputy Director General and Chief of Petroleum Exploration Project, under the Department of Mines and Geology, who said that the exploration team has only drilled 1455 meters as of August 13. “We need to dill at least 4000 meters to be able to extract the oil,” he added.
Thus, our findings clearly show that the joint team of Nepali and Chinese engineers exploring mineral oil in Dailekh have not been able to extract petrol until the time of publishing this article.
Conclusion
No, the Chinese team has not extracted petrol in Dailekh district of Nepal. The viral video is exaggerated and misleading.
Result: False
Sources
Mero Pokharaa/YouTube, July 11, 2024
Petroleum Exploration Project
Global Times, May 29, 2024
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
