The Central Area Transmission System (known as CATS) is a natural gas transportation and processing system that transports natural gas through a 404 kilometre pipeline from the Central North Sea to a reception and processing terminal at Teesside in the North East of England. History Plans for the site began from the discovery of BP's Lomond field in May 1972. In addition, other fields were discovered in the Central Graben Area of the North Sea. The receiving terminal site for the system was built between 1990 and 1993. It was originally operated by Amoco. The CATS pipeline was completed in 1993, receiving gas from two of Amoco's fields: Everest and Lomond, now owned by Chrysaor. Together with the development of the Everest and Lomond fields, the project, which included the construction of an offshore riser platform and pipeline, was one of the largest construction projects ever undertaken in the UK, second only to the Channel Tunnel at that time. Due to increased demand within the Central North Sea, the decision was taken to provide a processing service to future users of the CATS pipeline, enabling delivery of their gas into the National Transmission System. This required the construction of a pipeline reception and gas treatment facility, and the CATS gas and liquids processing plant, comprising two processing trains, each with the capacity to handle around 17 million standard cubic metres of gas per day. The first of the new trains went into operation four months ahead of schedule in May 1997, and the second train was commissioned in 1998. In July 2007, the CATS pipeline was damaged by the anchor of the vessel 'Young Lady'. The pipeline was shut-in for two months. Route The 36-inch diameter pipeline runs from the CATS riser platform, which is located in Block 22/10a of the Central North Sea, east of Aberdeen, to Teesside in England. The pipeline reaches the shore at Coatham Sands near Redcar where there is a Beach Valve Station, remotely operated from the CATS terminal. The pipeline is routed under the River Tees for to the gas terminal. The CATS pipeline was originally conceived to carry natural gas from the Everest and Lomond fields and was built oversized to accommodate future production from fields in the surrounding area. The CATS pipeline now transports gas from over 30 producing fields including J-block, MONARB, ETAP, Erskine, Armada, Andrew, Huntington, Banff, Stella, Culzean and