The Chairman of the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) Farhat Bengdara said he had agreed with Italian oil company Eni and United Kingdom's company British Petroleum (BP) to start drilling and production of natural gas in the Mediterranean, a field that is similar to Dahr field in Egypt but with larger reserves.

Bengdara told Sky News Arabia on the sidelines of Abu Dhabi International Petroleum's Exhibition that Eni will invest 8 billion dollars to develop the natural gas field in west Libya, saying the field reserves will be announced after starting production operations, which will soon have a set date. He reiterated that confirmed Libyan gas reserves are more than 80 trillion square feet.

Bengdara expected that Libya would achieve oil revenues ranging between 35 and 37 billion dollars by the end of this year, the highest since 2013, and stressed that the country needs investments of 4 billion dollars annually to maintain the volume of oil production.

He reiterated that the NOC is working on a plan to increase production to 2 million barrels in a period of three to five years, adding that this is an opportunity to maintain and modernize the infrastructure, whether the gas or oil pipelines, or tanks, in addition to developing the infrastructure of the fields.