Italian multinational oil and gas company Eni announced in a statement on Thursday the start-up of the Zohr gas field's second production unit (T-1), which will increase production capacity by 400 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD).

Zohr now has a capacity of 800 MMSCFD, or 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day, the statement said.

The step comes four months after gas production started at Egypt's giant offshore gas field.

Production increases are set to continue in order to reach 1.2 billion cubic feet per day (BCFD) in May 2018, 2 BCFD by end 2018, finally plateauing at 2.7 BCFD in 2019.

The Zohr field, the largest natural gas discovery ever made in the Mediterranean Sea, is located off Egypt's northern coast within the Shorouk block some 190 km north of Port Said.

The field was discovered in August 2015 and production began in December 2017 with a time-to-market of 2.3 years.

The mammoth gas field is set to transform Egypt's liquid natural gas (LNG) industry, ending Egypt's importation of the product by 2018.

Eni holds a 60 percent stake in the Shorouk block, while Russian Rosneft owns 30 percent and British Petroleum BP owns 10 percent.

In March 2018, Eni agreed to sell a 10 percent stake in the concession to UAE's Mubadala Petroleum.

The project is executed by Petrobel, the operating company jointly held by Eni and the state-run Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC), and is run on behalf of Petroshorouk, which is jointly held by Eni, its partners and the state-run Egyptian Natural Gas holding Company (EGAS).

Eni has been present in Egypt since 1954, where it operates through its subsidiary, the Italian-Egyptian Oil Company (IEOC).

The company is the country's leading LNG producer, putting out about 250,000 BOE per day.