Seventh round of Renaissance Dam talks in Sudan going on smoothly

The seventh round of Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam talks, currently on session in Sudan, are going on smoothly, well-informed sources said on Thursday.

The second-day meetings of the Tripartite Technical Committee on the Renaissance Dam are expected to strike a deal on tasks to be assumed by the two international consultancy offices, the sources added.

In a statement to MENA, the sources said the talks will not extend to a third day as expected, adding the efforts are underway to reach a compromise to settle the pending issues that were not handled in the previous round of talks held in Cairo.

The suggested compromise precisely sets 70% of tasks for the main French consultancy office and the remaining 30% for the sub Dutch consultancy office, the sources underlined.

Upon the proposed compromised, the two consultancy offices will be required to submit a report on completed tasks to the Technical National Committee comprising 12 experts from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, the sources noted.

The three countries are in dispute over the tasks assigned to the main and sub consultancy offices slated to conduct studies on the impact of the dam in the water and hydro electrical domains.

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.