Oil & gas giant Shell has announced its plans to hire additional 600 researchers and engineers in its Bangalore technology centre, which was set up in 2006 and currently has 900 R&D staff.

The $470-billion firm has announced its plan to move to a new forty-acre campus situated in Devanahalli on the fringes of the city by the year of 2015. The firm's current R&D staff is split across two leased facilities.

Director Matthias Bichsel, of projects & technology at Royal Dutch Shell, said that the Bangalore centre was the company's lead centre for bitumen research.

Speaking about the new centre, Bichsel said, "The centre is modeling, for instance, the surface of our giant oil field in Majnoon in Iraq. It will tell us where to drill the wells, where to locate what."

Bichsel was in Bangalore to lay the foundation stone of the new campus. Murugesh Nirani, Minister for Large & Medium Scale Industries of Karnataka Government, was also present at the occasion.

Shell believes that the new project will help it play a key role in driving its aspiration to become the most innovative and competitive energy company.

Shell is involved in numerous businesses in India. It operates two bitumen plants and sixty gas stations, manufactures branded lubricants, and is the major investor in the Hazira LNG re-gasification terminal.