Egypt’s Baltim South West offshore gas field, discovered by Italian oil giant Eni in 2016, started production, with an estimated initial output of 100 million cubic feet of gas a day, the oil ministry said on Tuesday 

Production is expected to rise to 500 million cubic feet of gas by the second quarter of 2020 when an additional five wells go on stream, the ministry said.

The field, located 12 kilometers off Egypt's Mediterranean coast, has a potential capacity of 1 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas, while the potential of the area where it is located, the Great Nooros area, is nearly 3 tcf, Eni said in a statement.

Eni, through its subsidiary IEOC, holds a 50 percent stake in the Baltim South lease and BP holds the remaining 50 percent.

The project is operated by Petrobel, a joint venture between Eni and the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation.

In 2015, Eni discovered Egypt’s giant offshore Zohr gas field, the largest in the Mediterranean, whose output now stands at 2.7 billion cubic feet of gas daily.

Bigger output helped Egypt become self sufficient in natural gas in late 2018.