Egyptian geologist says 4th filling of Ethiopian Dam to be equivalent to previous 3

CAIRO – 5 April 2023: Professor of Geology and Water Resources at Cairo University Abbas Sharaky posted on Facebook Tuesday noting that the two turbines installed at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) had not been working for a week.

The professor added that the water flows through one of the drain holes with a daily rate of 20 million cubic meters. Depending on satellite images, Sharaqy detected the heightening of the side walls to 626 meters, and the middle one to 607 meters.

The expert estimates that the height of the middle wall would reach 620 meters this year, which, in turn, would allow holding 17 billion cubic meters in the fourth filling. The quantity is equivalent to that of the previous three fillings combined.  

Sharaky said in August that the third filling was conducted between July 11 and August 11, and that the quantity of water held is just nine billion cubic meters upping the total in the reservoir to 17 billion cubic meters.  

The first filling of the GERD took place on July 1- 21, 2020 with 4.9 billion cubic meters, while the second was carried out on July 4 – 18, 2021 with around three billion cubic meters.

Sharaqi had stated in July that two billion cubic meters had been released since April 2022 by opening two gates.

The professor further noted that construction works in the dam would persist for 5-6 years because the middle wall needs to be more heightened for the reservoir's capacity to become 74 billion cubic meters as initially planned.

The dispute among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia dates back to May 2011 when Ethiopia started building the dam; Egypt voiced concern over its water share [55.5 billion cubic meters].

Constructions in the Grand Renaissance Dam started on April 2, 2011 at a cost of $4.8 billion. It was built by the Italian construction and engineering company Salini Impergilo. The dam is located on the Blue Nile with a planned reservoir capacity of 74 billion cubic meters, and was expected to generate up to 6,000 megawatts of power.

However, it is estimated to generate only 3,000 megawatts, as the number of turbines to be installed has been reduced to 13 turbines down from 16. At the beginning of this year, the first turbine was installed but no more so far.