Italy’s Salini to Build $4.8 Billion Ethiopian Great Millennium Nile Dam
Tigrai Online
April. 05 2011
Salini Costruttori Spa, a Rome-based construction company, has been chosen by Ethiopian Electric Power Corp. to build the country’s Great Millennium Dam for almost $5 billion, the Addis Fortune reported.
The structure will be built along the Nile River about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Sudanese border, the newspaper said. It will generate 5,250 megawatts of electricity, of which the first 700 megawatts will come online in 2015, according to the report published April 3.
The Ethiopian government plans to fund the entire project, citing difficulties sourcing money from multilateral banks for its dam projects in the past, the Ethiopian daily reported.
The dam is projected to cost about 80 billion birr ($4.76 billion), or 95 percent of the government’s budget for this fiscal year, the newspaper said.
Ethiopia has not yet responded to a request from Egypt for the technical and environmental studies of the dam and its effect on Egypt’s Nile water quota, Addis Fortune said.