Norway’s longest oil pipeline has now been installed at the huge Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea.
The 175mile pipeline extends from the Equinor-operated field to the Mongstad oil terminal outside Bergen.
Late last week the last pipe was installed by the Saipem Castorone vessel.
When Johan Sverdrup reaches peak production it will pump 660,000 barrels of oil per day through Mongstad, worth £32.2m according to Equinor.
Saipem Castorone started pipelaying operations in April and is now preparing to install a 97mile gas pipeline, which will connect to the Statpipe pipeline system.
Laying the pipelines is the final installation phase for the field, which is due to startup in November next year.
Johan Sverdrup is estimated to have recoverable resources of 2.7billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Equinor’s Geir Bjaanes, who is responsible for subsea, power and pipelines for the Johan Sverdrup project, said: “We have together with our supplier Saipem succeeded in laying the oil pipeline to Johan Sverdrup without any serious incidents.
“It has been a significant operation, involving more than 600 people at the most, who have welded together over 23,000 pipes to create what has now become Norway’s largest and longest oil pipeline.”
