Egypt is looking to invest $1bn in additional oil production in the Sinai desert, according to the country’s oil minister.

To reach this goal, 60 new wells will be drilled into reservoirs, Abdullah Ghorab told the local Bikya Masr newspaper.

The programme will run until 2014, and the added production will be used to supply the domestic petrol market and to fill up Egypt’s strategic reserves, said the report.

Former Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation chief executive Ghorab succeeded Sameh Fahmy as oil minister in February this year following the collapse of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime.