BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - Burundi, Rwanda and Tanzania have proposed a 60 megawatt hydroelectric dam project, expected to cost $100 million, to meet growing demand for power in the region, officials said.

"All regional countries are affected by a serious energy crisis which causes a great impact on our economies," Burundi's director-general for water and energy, Idi-Presadi Buhanga, said on Friday.

"There was an obligation for our three countries to take up a common project to overcome that energy deficit," he said.

Buhanga said the three countries would each get 20 MW from the dam, to be sited in Tanzania along the Kagera river.

Feasibility studies are underway, and the three nations have pitched the project to the African Development Bank and the World Bank. The expected completion date would be 2012.

Burundi's energy production capacity is 32.5 MW, but the country has to import 15 MW of electricity from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Despite that, the country still has a 12 MW deficit that constrains economic growth, Buhanga said.

"We need enough energy to develop our mine sector for instance," he said.

Burundi has an estimated 200 million tonnes of nickel, which cannot now be exploited due to the lack of sufficient power supply.

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