Pipeline begins routing gas to UK

Constructing the pipeline was a challenging engineering feat

Gas flow is being fed for the first time through a 746-mile long (1,200km) pipeline Which will feed natural gas from Norway into UK's National grid.

It is hoped the underwater Langeled pipeline - the world's longest - will provide a fifth of the UK's peak winter fuel demand over the next 40 years.

The £5.5bn link connects Nyhamna to Easington in East Yorkshire.

Tony Blair and Jens Stoltenberg, his Norwegian counterpart, will attend a completion ceremony later this month.

Underground caverns

Commercial deliveries through the southern leg of Langeled from the Sleipner gas processing platform are set to begin on Sunday.

The project will see gas stored in huge caverns underground and will be taken out of the reservoir as and when required.

The pipeline will eventually stretch to Ormen Lange, the largest gas field under development on the Norwegian continental shelf.

The pipeline's construction, which began in 2004, is the world's biggest single engineering project. It has been backed by Centrica and energy giants Statoil, Norsk Hydro, Royal DutchShell and ConocoPhillips.

It is hoped the pipeline will ease concerns over dwindling supplies which have sent gas prices in the UK soaring over the last two years.

The UK's own reserves of natural gas are dwindling so it is necessary to import gas from abroad, but gas supplies from Russia have proved unreliable.