Ministries Sign MoU for Drone Development

Addis Ababa December 25/2018 Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas and Ministry of Science & Innovation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop drones that monitor natural gas pipelines and identify energy and mineral locations across the nation. The first project on the development of drones will begin within two years, Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Samuel Urgatu said. According to him, the technology is essential for his ministry to ease mineral and petroleum discoveries in complex topographies such as water and mountains. “The second project will help ensure safety of the over 800 kilometers long natural gas pipeline by delivering live information from the transmission,” he added. The drone, which is developed on the basis of home grown technologies, will fly over the 800 kilometers long gas pipeline installed from Ogaden up to Djibouti and sends immediate end-to-end real time security alerts to Ministry of Mines, Petroleum and Natural Gas. “It effectively checks end-to-end gas leakage, pipeline defects and other safety related attacks,” Science and Innovation Minister Getahun Mekuria said. Meanwhile, Ministry of Science and Innovation has organized a discussion with experts from all sectors on National Technology Roadmap which was prepared and handed over by the ministry for 20 sectors two years ago. The implementation of the roadmap will be conducted over a period of ten up to fifteen years, it was learned. So far only construction, irrigation, sugar and leather sectors have prepared implementation manual and are expected to perform 10 percent of their plans this year. Getahun stated that mining and petroleum, environmental, pharmaceutical, livestock, meat, fertilizer, chemical, road, crop, energy, textile, ICT, railway, coffee, cement, iron and steel are yet to develop their operation manual.