The New Valley Project consists of building a number of canals, to be able to irrigate parts of the desert in Egypt for the purpose of agriculture. The project was started in 1997. Its main canal should cover a distance of . In 2012, it was still away from the oasis it was supposed to reach. Other problems of the project include the fact that the soil is very salty in the desert, and that there are underground aquifers, which are a problem for the canals. When the land is irrigated, the salt would mix with the aquifers and would reduce access to drinking water. The clay minerals found in the soil are posing technical problems to the big wheeled structures moving around autonomously to irrigate the land. Often their wheels get stuck in a little bowl created by wet clay that dried, and the irrigation machines come to a standstill. The only objective met up to April 2012 is the diversion of water from Lake Nasser into what little of the Sheikh Zayed Canal has been built.