Italian energy company Eni said Wednesday it was able to boost its production at a gas field in Egypt within a year of making the initial discovery.

Eni said production from an exploration well in the Nooros field was up to about 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, a level reached 10 months after the initial discovery in the Nile Delta region of Egypt. The company said the next benchmark would be to double that level by the end of the year by drilling additional wells.

The Italian company said the production milestone "further confirms Eni's near field exploration strategy oriented on high-value activities, which, thanks to the existing infrastructures, allows the fast development of the findings."

Eni has been robust with new activity and exploration, scoring a victory with Egyptian government consent to start developing the Zohr natural gas field offshore, which the company said may be one of the biggest discoveries in the world.

Production during the fourth quarter of 1.9 million barrels of oil equivalent was the highest level for Eni in five years. New exploration activity, boosted by the Zohr field, yielded 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent in what the company described as fresh resources.

Eni said its equity production in Egypt as of last year was around 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Full-scale production from the Nooros field should help Egypt reduce its dependency on foreign gas imports, the Italian company said.

Egypt is a global leader in terms of natural gas consumption and relies currently on imports to meet domestic demand. The trading arm of Russian energy company Rosneft last week delivered its first-ever shipment of liquefied natural gas to the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Co. under the terms of an agreement signed in August.