Second day of Renaissance dam talks wraps up in Cairo

A tripartite national committee Thursday wrapped up the second day of talks on the impact of the Renaissance Dam on the downstream countries.

The meeting, with all its 12 experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia along representatives from the two international consultancy offices - the French BRL Group and the Dutch Deltares - discussed the mechanism of working to file a report to the three countries taking part in the talks.

This is the sixth round of meetings that aims to finalize contracts with the two companies before implementation of the studies starts.

This round of talks is faced with major challenges regarding the technical sides of the study which would be conducted by the two foreign consultants, said adviser to the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Alaa Yassin who is a member at the committee.

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.

Egypt fears a temporary reduction of water availability due to the filling of the dam and a permanent reduction because of evaporation from the reservoir.

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