Italy’s Eni is in weighing plans to sell down its stake in the Egypt’s Zohr gas field to 50 percent and the firm has already started speaking with various parties for the deal, according to its CEO Claudio Descalzi.

“We believe we can operate the field with 50 per cent, that’s my objective,” news agency Reuters quoted Descalzi as saying on the sidelines of an industry event.

Eni owns the whole Shorouk concession, which includes its Zohr discovery, last week inked a deal to sell a 10 per cent stake to BP for $375m. Under the agreement BP has an option to buy another 5 per cent in the giant gas field and will pay Eni $150m of in the past expenditures.

The Italian group discovered Zohr in 2015, the biggest gas discovery in the Mediterranean which has an estimated 850 billion cubic metres of reserves in place. Zohr is expected to start production by the end of 2017.

Eni is speaking to a series of groups about the sale of further stakes.

“This could happen fairly quickly. In our business that could also mean a few months,” he said.

Eni, whose cash flow fell 19 per cent in the third quarter, is committed to selling €5b ($5.30bn) of assets in the next two years to help fund investments, according to the report.

The company also aims to sell down its indirect 50 per cent holding in Area 4 gas field offshore Mozambique. A decision on the deal could come soon, however, permits and bureaucracy were slowing things down, he added.

In 2013 Eni sold 20 per cent of its Area 4 licence to China’s CNPC for $4.2bn, however, prices of oil and gas have slumped by more than half since then.