French oilfield services firm Technip has signed a letter of intent for an $800 million deal to build a a giant 1.3 million tonnes per year ethylene cracker in Qatar.

Technip, which will provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the plant, signed the letter with Qatar Petroleum, ChevronPhillips Chemical Company, Qatar Petrochemical Co and Total Petrochem-icals, the companies said.
The cracker venture, one of the world's biggest, will be owned by Qatar Petrochemical Company with Total Petrochemicals through their Qatofin joint venture, and Qatar Petroleum with Chevron Phillips Chemical through their Q-Chem II co-owned project.
Engineering contracts for Q-Chem and Qatofin - which are projected to cost $2.6 billion - are expected to be awarded respectively in June and in October, Qatar Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah said at the signing ceremony.
"We will build one of the biggest crackers in the petrochemical world which we hope will make Qatar a leader in the petrochemical world," he said.
The ethylene cracker in Ras Laffan industrial city, the Q-Chem II project and Qatofin projects are expected to begin operations in mid-2008.
Qatar and Arkema, Total's chemicals firm, also agreed in principle to a $500 million deal to double the production capacity of the Qatar Vinyl Company by 2009, he added.
Meanwhile, Qatar Petroleum signed a deal with Shell Chemicals Limited to build a petrochemical complex expected to cost around $2 billion.
A letter of intent was signed for the development of a world-scale ethane based cracker and derivatives complex in Ras Laffan Industrial City. The plant is expected to come on stream in 2011, Al Attiyah said.
Attiyah said the complex would produce "cost competitive petrochemical products to be marketed into primarily Asian growth markets."