The Egyptian consortium, consisting of the Arab Contractors and Elsewedy Electric, announced the developments of the construction of the first dam in Tanzania.
The Egyptian consortium said that it celebrated on Thursday the completion of casting the last cube of reinforced concrete in the body of the main dam in Tanzania.
The construction of the main dam lasted over 687 days since the diversion of the river on November 18, 2020, in the presence of senior officials of the Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited, owner of the project.
Egyptian Minister of Housing, Assem al-Gazzar, confirmed that with the completion of the construction of the main dam, the Egyptian consortium has begun preparing to start holding the waters of the Rufiji River behind the dam.
This is scheduled to last for about two months (according to flood forecasts for the current year).
According to Gazzar, three giant water drainage gates have been established on three levels in the body of the dam, which will control the provision of the minimum amount of water to maintain the riverine environment below the dam.
This will also control the discharge of excess water in cases of floods and emergency situations during operation.
Very precise engineering procedures will start to close the river diversion tunnel marking the start of filling the lake that will form behind the dam on an area of about 158,000 square kilometers.
An operational capacity of 32.7 billion cubic meters and a maximum capacity of 34 billion cubic meters.
With the main dam height reaching 190 meters above sea level on a base of about 20,000 square meters and a length of up to 1,033 meters at the top, the Egyptian alliance has successfully.
This completed casting one million four hundred and fifty cubic meters of compacted concrete RCC at daily rates that reached 8,000 cubic meters, in addition to about 320,000 cubic meters of CVC concrete, on which 2,500 engineers and workers worked, over 22 million hours of work in the main dam, Gazzar said.
He stressed that the project is progressing successfully despite many natural obstacles.
The aim is to complete the installation and testing of the nine hydroelectric generating units, successively, as of 2023, realizing a Tanzanian dream that began in the 1960’s to achieve sustainable development.
The dam will double the electrical capacities on the Tanzanian network, and will allow controlling the floods that have caused the death of thousands, mostly children, in Tanzania in the past years, and will reduce the formation of seasonal swamps, which are the main cause of the spread of dangerous diseases, in addition to sustaining the necessary water disposals.
The Egyptian consortium has submitted to an international tender put forward by the government of the United Republic of Tanzania in favor of the Tanzanian Electricity Supply Company, to design and implement the Julius Nyerere Hydroelectric Power Plant (JNHPP) project.
This has a total capacity of 2.115 megawatts on the Rufiji River, according to Gazzar.
The Egyptian alliance’s offer was chosen as the best technical and financial offer, and the project contract was signed at a value of US$2.9 billion on December 12, 2018, in a special ceremony held in Dar es Salaam.
