Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia agree on work scope of Dam's consultancy offices

Egyptian Water Resources and Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazy on Friday said that Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have agreed on the scope and mechanism of work of two international consultancy firms chosen to carry out studies on the dam.

In statements to MENA, Moghazy said that the Tripartite Technical Committee on Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam wrapped up its seventh round of talks in Khartoum after reaching a compromise to settle pending issues that were not handled in the previous round of talks, which was held in Cairo.

The compromise precisely sets 70 percent of tasks to the main French consultancy office and the remaining 30 percent to the subordinate Dutch office, Moghazy told MENA.

The two offices will be required to submit a report to the committee that comprises 12 experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia.

Moghazy stressed that the seventh round of talks added momentum to the course of negotiations. The next round of talks will be held in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.

The Renaissance Dam is a gravity dam on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia currently under construction.

It is located about 15 kilometers east of the border with Sudan.
At 6,000 megawatts, the dam will be the largest hydroelectric power plant in Africa when completed, as well as the 11th largest in the world sharing the spot with the Krasnoyarsk Dam.

The storage reservoir holds a large volume of water equal to 79 billion cubic meters.

Ethiopia denies that the dam will have a negative impact on water flows to Egypt and Sudan.

The reservoir volume is about equivalent to the annual flow of the Nile at the Sudanese-Egyptian border.