Energy majors BP and Eni on Thursday announced a significant natural gas discovery off the Egyptian coast. The discovery is in the Baltim southwest exploration prospect in the East Nile Delta. It is 10 km north of the Nooros gas field which was discovered in July last year and has a production rate of 65,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, the companies said. Italy's Eni, through its subsidiary IEOC, holds a 50 percent stake in the licence of Baltim South and BP holds the other 50 percent. The new discovery "further confirms the significant potential of the so called Great Nooros Area, which is now estimated to hold 70-80 billion cubic metres of gas in place," Eni said in a statement. BP said that appraisal activities will be required to understand its full resource potential.