June 9 (Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom, Russia's state-owned natural gas monopoly, plans to double project investment to $30 billion this year, a move which would allow it to overtake a target set by Royal Dutch Shell Plc which the Anglo-Dutch company said was the largest in the oil and gas industry.

Gazprom will explore new fields and build pipelines to supply gas to Europe, Chief Executive Officer Alexei Miller said in a speech June 7 to a conference in St. Petersburg. Shell Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer on June 2 reiterated his company plans to invest $27 billion this year.

Shell had ``the largest spending program in the industry today,'' The Hague-based company's Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said on April 29. BP Plc, Europe's second largest oil company, plans to invest $22 billion in projects this year, Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward said at the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

Moscow-based Gazprom is boosting spending on projects to find more gas as its fields become depleted in Siberia. The company supplies about 40 percent of Europe's gas imports. Russian demand for the fuel, which expanded by 25.5 billion cubic meters between 2005 and 2007, is also rising and now exceeds exports to Italy, Miller said.

Gazprom rose 2.66 rubles, or 0.8 percent, to 339.76 rubles in Moscow trading.

The company ended a bid today to gain control of Russia's biggest coal producer, OAO Siberian Coal Energy Co., because of ``uncertainty'' in the energy market. The transaction would have created the country's largest electricity producer, after this month's breakup of OAO Unified Energy System, and the biggest coal supplier to power plants.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: June 9, 2008 12:51 EDT