Sumitomo Corp. has agreed to buy a stake in a $600 million natural-gas project in the Barnett Shale region of Texas from Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. to capitalize on growing demand for cleaner-burning fuel.

Japan's third-biggest trading house signed an agreement to take 12.5 percent of the first phase of the project from the Houston-based energy company for $25 million, Koji Furui, a spokesman for Sumitomo, said Tuesday.

The announcement came a day after Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed to acquire XTO Energy Inc. for $31 billion in a bet that U.S. emissions restrictions will spur demand for the fuel. XTO also extracts gas from the Barnett Shale area, the largest so-called unconventional gas field in the U.S.

The venture will extract gas trapped in shale rock thousands of feet below the surface. Output started this year and will peak in 2013 at 24 billion cu. feet a year, Furui said.

Sumitomo expects the U.S. to depend more on domestic shale gas and reduce imports of liquefied natural gas, Furui said. The company, whose core gas business is in the North Sea, wants to further expand exploration and production businesses in the U.S.