Italian Eni has raised its expectations for production from Egypt’s Nooros Field by 20% from the planned 1bcf/d to reach 1.2bcf/d by mid 2017, reported Al Borsa.

A source with the Egyptian oil and gas sector stated that the company found out during the drilling of development wells in Nooros that it is possible to boost production to 1.2bcf/d.

The sources pointed out that the company will link 180mcf/d from three wells in Nooros field to production within the first quarter of 2017 in order to increase total production to 1bcf/d. This increase has a total investment of $450m. Furthermore, the field’s current production is planned to reach 850mcf/d after the completion of drilling a number of development wells and linking them to production.

Thus, linking production from Nooros field will help in compensating the national production declining ratio of natural gas, which is estimated at 600mcf/y. It will further lead to an increase in the total local production.

The sources added that Egypt’s total natural gas production reached 4.45bcf/d. Yet, Egypt still imports 1bcf/d through the two floating storage regasification units (FSRUs) and the Jordon pipeline.