Once the dam is completed, which is expected to occur in the near future, it will consist of a 145-meter high and 1,800-meter-long roller-compacted concrete wall that cost around $5 billion to build. Allam is convinced that the dam poses a threat to Egypt. What’s more, he thinks it’s unnecessary, because “Ethiopia has heavy rainfall along the Nile basin, ranging from 900 millimeters per year to over 2,200 millimeters per year in some areas. Egypt, by contrast, only gets 20 millimeters. That’s practically nothing, we are veritably drying out.” Allam also points out that “the water from the Blue Nile, which would otherwise flow through Sudan and then through Egypt, would have to be diverted for more than one and a half years for the reservoir to fill up.”