Egyptian President, Abd El Fattah El Sisi, met with Italian Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, in the attendance of Egyptian Prime Minister, Sherif Ismail, and the country’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla.

During the meeting, El Sisi pointed out that it is vital for Eni to meet the scheduled timeframe for Zohr field’s production, reported Al Mal News.

Accordingly, Eni announced that both the Egyptian and Italian parties reviewed Eni’s activities in Egypt as the Italian company has invested $2.7b in 2016, reported Reuters. Furthermore, Descalzi confirmed during the meeting that Eni will meet the deadline as the field will start production before the end of 2017. Eni had already worked on the infrastructure and pipelines in cooperation with Egyptian and Italian firms. Additionally, Nooros field is planned to produce around 172,000b/d of equivalents by the end of January 2017, after running the field for 15 days.

Descalzi added that the company is planning to increase its exploration investments in Egypt to reach around $3.5b during 2017. He explained that Eni had already signed two new concession agreements with the ministry of petroleum to explore in South Al Hammad and South Ras AlEsh in the Mediterranean.