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BANGKOK (AP) - Chevron Corp. will invest about US$4 billion in Asia this year for petroleum exploration and production, a company executive said Friday.

"The company sees Asia as a very attractive place for investment for future growth," Steve Green, managing director of Chevron Asia South Ltd., told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

Chevron plans to spend US$20 billion this year and 20 percent of that will be spent in Asia, he said.

The company's major plans for Asia include developing a liquefied natural gas project in Australia, maintaining petroleum production in Indonesia and Thailand, as well as exploration in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam, he said.

Asia accounts for a quarter of Chevron's 62 billion barrels-of-oil-equivalent in global reserves. The company plans to increase its global production by an average of 3 percent a year from now to 2010, Green said.