In the aftermath of the Arab spring in 2012, Egas, the Egyptian body for research activities in the Nile delta offshore, launched a tender: a mission for operators to monitor 15 exploration blocks in search of energy resources destined for the country's growth. With September arrived the deadline for Eni to decide on the blocks it was interested in if it wanted to participate in the tender. The Six-legged dog exploration team first chose 10 and then whittled them down to the final 3. At the end of the process 1 remained, block number 9, Shourouk. Eni explorers found a reef, a limestone bio-construction of skeletons and shells buried under thousands of metres of sediment and water, in the area. It took three years to study it.
Drilling began in the depths of the Mediterranean on 3 July 2015. Thanks to Eni, Egypt and the entire Mediterranean basin soon became the centre of an important discovery. Meanwhile, off the coast, the colossal Saipem 10000 floating rig continued to explore the reef. 500-600 metres deep in the field, while the explorers collected the data and reworked it. Slowly it began to dawn on us that was a job like no other and the discovery came ever closer. It was named Zohr, one of the largest natural gas fields ever found in the Mediterranean: 100 square kilometres of extension with 850 bilion cubic meters of potential resources. Zohr, along with Tamar and Leviathan and the other fields in the exploration phase, transformed the energy distribution balance of two continents.