BEIJING (AP): Royal Dutch Shell Group plans to spend US$500 million (euro420 million) in China this year as it expands its gas station network and develops clean energy projects, a Shell executive said Wednesday.?

The company is still in negotiations over adding to its network of own-brand gas stations in the southern province of Guangdong, in Beijing and in the nearby northern city of Tianjin, said Nick Wood, Shell's external affairs director in China.?

The Anglo-Dutch company is one of the largest foreign investors in China and also has 200 joint venture gas stations with local partner China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, Asia's biggest oil refiner, the official Xinhua News Agency cited Shell's executive chairman in China, Lim Haw Kuang, as saying.?

"Shell's investment of US$3.5 billion (euro2.94 billion) in China is too little, while the investment opportunities in the country are so big,'' Lim was quoted as saying.?

Shell also has a major petrochemical project, Nanhai Petrochemical, on the southern island of Hainan with partner China National Offshore Oil Corp. The factory, with an annual output capacity of 2.3 million tons, is one of the biggest in the country, Xinhua said.?

Lim said the company would seek all possible opportunities for investment, including clean energy.?

Shell and Shenhua Group, China's biggest coal producer, recently signed a preliminary agreement to jointly develop a coal liquefaction project in northwest China's Ningxia region.?