Around 61 metres of Miocene and Oligocene gas bearing sandstone were found at the well under 309 metres of water, Eni said in a statement, adding that the proximity of Nargis-1 to Eni’s current facilities will allow for further development of the gas discovery.

Eni, an Italian multinational energy company operating in Egypt since 1954, has also been awarded exploration rights in North Rafah, North El-Fayrouz, North East El Arish, Tiba and Bellatrix-Seti East.

The company is presently the leading producer in Egypt with an equity production of hydrocarbons of approximately 350,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, according to their website.

Eni's most notable discovery in Egypt was the Zohr Gas Field in 2015, which allowed the country to achieve self-sufficiency in gas by 2018.

Egypt's gas export revenues have increased eight-fold since 2014, as the country aims to become a major gas supplier to the European continent, especially since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukrainian conflict.

This comes in light of European countries' desire to diversify their energy sources in order to decrease dependency on Russian gas, which accounted for 45 percent of European imports in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). 

Egypt also has the infrastructure for transporting and handling natural gas with a network of 7,000 km in pipelines, a distribution network of 31,000 km, and 29 gas-treatment plants as well as two LNG facilities – the Idku and Damietta plants.