CAIRO, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian cabinet has approved four petroleum cooperation agreements and referred them to the House of Representatives for ratification, Egypt's Petroleum Minister Tarek al-Mullah said on Thursday.

Al-Mullah told reporters that two agreements were signed by the state-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation and they were amendments to already-existing deals with foreign partners over concessions in North Sinai maritime area and Abu Senan area in the Western Desert.

"The two others were signed by the state-owned Ganoub al-Wadi Petroleum Holding Company and they are related to the tender it won as regards to concessions in West Gabal al-Zeit and Taer al-Bahr area in Suez," the minister said.

The deals aim at attracting new global investments to Egypt in the oil and gas drilling field as well as exploration domains and consequently increasing Egypt's oil and natural gas reserves, he added.

Under the four deals, around 17 wells will be dug with some 230-million-dollar investments expected to be pumped into the petroleum and natural gas sectors.

The new deals are expected to be ratified by the parliament within the coming few months, the minister said.

Once an energy exporter, Egypt has turned into a net importer in recent years, squeezed by declining production and increasing consumption.

However, Egypt is back on track to be an exporter soon after a big number of recent discoveries across the country that attracted several international firms for oil exploration over the past years.