The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) has signed an agreement with the Italian giant energy group Eni for oil exploration and exploitation in the Gulf of Suez and Nile Delta regions worth $1 billion, Egypt's Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources announced on Friday.

Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El-Molla, EGPC's CEO Abed Ezz El-Regal, and Eni's Executive Director of Operations Alessandro Politi signed the agreement.

The statement pointed out that the deal with the Italian energy giant comes within the framework of the petroleum ministry's strategy to increase production rates and address the natural decline in wells bu using the latest technology.

The ministry also seeks to encourage partners to invest more in the field of oil and gas exploration, the statement added.

In recent years, Eni has taken part in important oil discoveries in the country's Western Desert as well as the operation of gas plants, as the country aims to become a regional energy hub.

Eni has been operating in Egypt through its subsidiary, the International Egyptian Oil Company (IEOC) Production BV, since 1954.

In 2015, the Italian energy giant discovered the giant Zohr gas field, the biggest-ever in the Mediterranean, off the Egyptian coast.

Zohr is located within the Shorouk concession, nearly 190 km north of the city of Port Said. Eni holds a 50 percent stake in the block and is responsible for operations there. The other stakeholders are Rosneft (30 percent), BP (10 percent) and Mubadala Petroleum (10 percent). Zohr’s daily production exceeded three billion cubic feet in 2020, making up 40 percent of Egypt’s total gas output. The total reserves of the Zohr gas field are estimated at 30 trillion cubic feet.