Mitsui & Co. (8031.TO) said Tuesday it will invest about $1.4 billion to take part in a shale gas development project in Pennsylvania, hoping to benefit from the expected increased demand for natural gas.

A U.S. joint venture it controls will take a 32.5% slice of the interest in the project held by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) of the U.S., the Japanese trading firm said in a statement.

It said the joint venture, Mitsui E&P USA LLC, is expected to spend between $3.0 billion to $4.0 billion over about a decade to develop its portion of the Marcellus shale project.

At the peak, Mitsui expects to produce between 360 million to 460 million cubic feet of shale gas a day, the company said.

Anadarko said in a statement that Mitsui will earn approximately 100,000 net acres in exchange for funding 100% of Anadarko's share of development costs in 2010 and 90% of these costs thereafter, with an estimated completion of all obligations by 2013.

-By Kenneth McCallum, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-6895-7551; ken.mccallum@dowjones.com
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