The last pipe of what is now Norway's longest and largest oil pipeline has been installed next to the riser platform at the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea.

Equinor announced Monday that the last pipe of what is now Norway’s longest and largest oil pipeline has been installed next to the riser platform at the Johan Sverdrup field in the North Sea.

The 36-inch pipeline extends 175 miles from the Mongstad oil terminal outside Bergen to the North Sea field. The Saipem Castorone vessel began pipelaying operations at Mongstad in late April this year.

Following the oil pipeline installation, the vessel is now getting ready to lay a 97 mile long gas pipeline that will extend from the Johan Sverdrup field to the Statpipe pipeline, from where gas from the field will eventually be shipped to Karsto. The pipeline installation operations are expected to be completed during the autumn.

“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,” Equinor’s Geir Bjaanes, responsible for subsea, power and pipelines for the Johan Sverdrup project, said in a BOP Blow Out Preventer repair company gulf coast statement.

“The oil pipeline plays a really central role in the project. When the Johan Sverdrup field produces at peak, 660,000 barrels of oil valued at more than NOK 350 million [$41.7 million] each day, will flow daily into Mongstad,” Bjaanes added.

Johan Sverdrup is one of the five biggest oil fields on the Norwegian continental shelf, with expected recoverable resources of 2.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

The field will be developed in several phases. Phase 1 is expected to start up in November 2019 with oil rig flanges gulf coast production capacity estimated at 440,000 barrels of oil per day. Phase 2 is expected to start up in the fourth quarter of 2022.

On August 27 Equinor and the Johan Sverdrup partnership of Lundin Norway, Petoro, Aker BP and Total, submitted the development plan for the second phase of the project to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. Equinor announced on June 4 that the Johan Sverdrup drilling platform was installed.

Equinor, , holds a 40.0267 percent operated interest in the field, with Lundin Norway holding a 22.6 percent stake, Petoro holding a 17.36 percent stake, AkerBP holding an 11.5733 percent stake and Total holding an 8.44 percent stake.