KEY POINTS
- Eni plans to invest $8 billion in Egypt over the next five years.
- The company will drill 230 exploration and development wells in 2026–2027.
- New projects including Denise West and Cronos are expected to support Egypt’s gas supply and LNG ambitions.
Eni is set to invest an additional $8 billion in Egypt over the next five years as the Italian energy company expands exploration and development activities aimed at boosting oil and gas production and strengthening Egypt’s position as a regional gas and LNG hub.
The investment will form part of a major 2026–2027 drilling campaign covering Egypt’s Mediterranean offshore fields, the Nile Delta, Western Desert and offshore Sinai.
Eni, Egypt’s largest oil and gas investor, plans to drill 30 new exploration wells and 200 development wells during 2026 and 2027.
The campaign is designed to increase production, identify additional reserves and extend the productive life of existing fields. It is also expected to support Egypt’s efforts to maintain domestic gas supplies while expanding its capacity to process and export gas.
Eni has invested about $8.5 billion in Egypt since entering the country in 1954. Its investments have included upstream oil and gas projects as well as pipelines, processing facilities and the Damietta LNG plant.
The company’s latest commitment would take its investment in the country to a new level, with the planned $8 billion programme spread across five years.
Denise West Discovery Could Help Replace Zohr Decline
One of the key developments supporting Eni’s expansion strategy is the Denise West gas discovery in the Temsah Concession.
Eni estimates that Denise West contains around 2 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas and 130 million barrels of condensate. The discovery was made during the company’s Mediterranean offshore exploration campaign, which began in October 2025.
Eni and its partners, BP and the Egyptian General Petroleum Company (EGPC), are considering a final investment decision in the coming months. First gas could be delivered within two years if the project proceeds as planned.
A major advantage of Denise West is its proximity to existing infrastructure serving the giant Zohr gas field. The new discovery could therefore be developed relatively quickly by using underutilised onshore facilities connected to Zohr.
This approach would reduce the need for extensive new infrastructure while allowing Eni to bring additional gas into production sooner.
The development of Denise West comes as Eni works to manage declining production at Zohr, Egypt’s largest gas field and the biggest gas discovery in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Zohr reached peak production of roughly 2.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2021. Output has since declined, largely because of reservoir depletion and water encroachment.
Despite the decline, the field remains strategically important, with estimated reserves of about 30 Tcf, equivalent to roughly 850 billion cubic metres of gas.
