Italian Eni finalized digging an additional well to the development plan of Egypt’s Zohr field. The new well will be linked to production in the project’s second phase, reported Daily News Egypt.

Additionally, an official from the company stated that Eni obtained approval from the Egyptian government prior to selling 30% stake of the Shorouk concession, which contains the Zohr field, to Rosneft. He added that the selling transaction is exempt from value-added tax as per the concession agreement, reported Al Borsa.

Eni had announced that it had agreed to sell a stake in Egypt’s Shorouk Concession to Russia’s Rosneft for $1.125b. Rosneft would repay investments already paid by Eni which has reached total of around $450m. This came as Eni had agreed on selling 10% of the concession’s stakes to UK’s BP. Eni further plans to decrease its stakes in the Shourouk concession to be 50% through selling extra 10% of its stakes. The company had already started offering the stakes to IOCs.

In related news, Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, had stated that the company was in talks with various parties in order to cut its stake in Egypt’s Zohr field to 50% operating interest instead of owning the entire stake in the concession that includes Zohr. Descalzi comments had come days after the company agreed to sell a 10% stake of Zohr to UK’s BP for $375m. BP, which had an option to buy another 5%, would also reimburse Eni for around $150m of past costs.