UPDATE 1-BP to sell UK gas pipeline stake to infrastructure fund

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LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) - BP has agreed to sellits stake in one of Europe's biggest gas pipelines to AntinInfrastructure Partners for 324 million pounds ($486 million),giving the fund near full ownership of the asset after it boughtout BG last year.

The sale of the Central Area Transmission System (CATS),which is expected to conclude before the end of the year, is anext step in BP's $10 billion 2014-2015 disposal programme.

CATS is a combination of pipeline and processing facilitiesthat transport gas from a cluster of North Sea fields to anonshore receiving terminal in Britain's Teesside.

It can handle more than 48 million cubic metres of gas perday, transporting over 10 percent of Britain's annual gasproduction and making it one of the largest in Europe.

BP said the sale would not impact its rights to capacity useon the system.

"CATS has been a great business for BP but...we believesecuring this new owner will ensure a better long-term futurefor this key piece of North Sea infrastructure," said TrevorGarlick, BP's regional president for the North Sea.

BP's CATS staff is expected to transfer to Antin. The fundsaid it does not plan to make any redundancies.

Last year, gas producer BG sold its own stake in CATS toAntin Infrastructure Partners for nearly $1 billion. Once theacquisition of BP's equity completes, the fund will own 99percent of CATS.

Antin has launched a tender to seek a company to operateCATS on its behalf.

"We have exciting plans to grow and develop CATS throughadditional investment," said Mark Crosbie, managing partner ofAntin Infrastructure Partners.

The fund also said it had recruited BP's vice president ofcommercial operations in the North Sea, Andy Hessell, to leadthe Antin CATS management team.

Antin, which specialises in European energy, transport andtelecoms investments, owns interests in assets such as solarplants, terminal operator Europort or motorway services operatorRoadchef.

($1 = 0.6665 pounds) (Reporting by Karolin Schaps, editing by William Hardy andSusan Thomas)