Construction of the controversial 670-kilometre gas pipeline in western Canada has been fully completed after five years of work, its promoter, TC Energy, announced on Monday.

“GasLink’s onshore pipelines are 100% installed along the route connecting northeastern British Columbia to Canada’s West Coast LNG facilities,” the energy company said in a statement.

This “significant milestone” will now allow TC Energy to inject natural gas into the pipeline and transport it from east to west until the pipeline is officially commissioned.

TC Energy, based in Calgary, Alberta, said it is “well positioned to meet year-end targets.”

In 2020, while the Coastal GasLink project was still under construction, the Coastal GasLink project sparked a large-scale conflict in Canada, with protests erupting in several regions of the country.

Some aboriginal leaders in British Columbia blocked construction of the project on the grounds that it crossed their ancestral lands. They were also concerned about the project’s impact on the environment.

Weeks of protests led to the closure of railways, roads and ports, which in turn caused shortages.

The Coastal GasLink pipeline is designed to transport natural gas for export to LNG Canada’s coastal terminal.

LNG Canada is a massive liquefied natural gas project that was billed as “the largest private investment project in Canadian history” at launch in 2018.

It is a joint venture developed by British oil and gas giant Shell together with Malaysia’s Petronas Group, China’s PetroChina, Japan’s Mitsubishi and South Korea’s Korea Gas Corp.