State-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has signed a contract worth $875m with the Italian oil company Eni for two offshore oil blocks in the emirate's latest awarded concession.

Eni has been awarded a 5 per cent stake in the Lower Zakum crude deposit and 10 per cent stake in the area containing the Umm Shaif and Nasr fields. The concession agreements are for a period of 40 years.

This is the first time that Eni has been awarded an upstream oil block in the UAE.

It is the fourth international company to be awarded a new offshore concession as part of the fragmentation of the Adnoc Offshore blocks, which were formerly known as the Adma-Opco concession.

Two went to Asian groups – an Indian consortium led by the overseas arm of state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh – and a subsidiary of Japan’s Inpex, an existing stakeholder in the concession.

The third was awarded to Spain’s Cepsa, owned by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company.

Adnoc is currently looking to maximise commercial value from its upstream assets as well as intensifying its downstream expansion drive in order to maximise gains from a global surge in demand for petrochemicals, particularly from Asia.

Last week Adnoc chief executive and UAE Minister of State Sultan al-Jaber said his company would present investment opportunities to potential investors at the Downstream Investment Forum in Abu Dhabi, on 13 and 14 May.

Key to the success of its downstream growth strategy, which is aligned to Adnoc’s Vision 2030 corporate policy, is the expansion of the Ruwais refinery into an integrated refining and petrochemicals production facility, enabling it to triple its annual production capacity to 14.4 million tonnes by 2025.

Adnoc has already announced a $3.1bn investment for the project to expand the capacity of the Ruwais complex.