Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is expected to hold talks with his counterparts from Sudan and Ethiopia over Addis Ababa's controversial Renaissance Dam plans during the upcoming African Union summit in Addis Ababa, according to media reports.

Egypt has been negotiating the dam issue with Ethiopia since 2011 when Addis Ababa began building its controversial dam that Cairo believes might affect its historical 55 billion cubic metre-share of Nile water.

Ethiopia claims that its "long-awaited national project," would not cause harm to any Nile basin country, saying that it is primarily aimed at generating power as only 10 percent of its population have consistent electricity services.

Since 2013, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been holding tripartite talks to discuss both the benefits and pitfalls of the project.

Following dozens of diplomatic and technical talks, the three countries agreed on a new French consultancy firm, BRL, to conduct studies on the possible impact of the dam on downstream countries.

Late in 2015, Dutch company Deltares pulled out citing that there were not enough guarantees that an independent, high- quality study could be carried out.

BRL will conduct the studies alongside the French firm Artelia; the two are set to complete their work in November 2016.

In December 2015, President El-Sisi addressed the public saying that there is no reason to worry about that dam and that the matter would be resolved.

However, El-Sisi added that "I totally understand the concern of Egyptians as water is a matter of life or death."

"We already agreed with our brothers [the Ethiopians] that they want to live the same way that we want to live,” he added.

Egypt’s current negotiations with Ethiopia are based on Addis Ababa’s timeline for filling the dam as well as its storage capacity.

The dam, which is scheduled to be completed in 2017, will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic metres of water.