French group Technip and a Norwegian firm have won contracts worth 1.35 billion euros involving the construction of the biggest pipe-laying ships of their type for Brazil, Technip said on Monday.

Technip, an oil services group, and Norwegian shipping group DOF, said that they had won eight contracts totalling 1.35 billion euros ($1.8 billion) from Brazilian oil group Petrobras to lay flexible pipelines at great depth.

The news pushed the price of shares in Technip up 1.50 percent to 84.75 euros. The overall French market as measured by the CAC 40 index was down by 0.04 percent.

The contracts, won by a joint venture between Technip and DOF, are for the construction and operation of four pipe-laying ships which will put down flexible lines within Brazilian waters.

The work on designing and building the ships is to be carried out by Vard, a Norwegian shipbuilding company which is quoted on the stock exchange in Singapore and is majority-owned by Italian company Fincantieri.

Two of the ships will have the ability to lay flexible pipes under tension of 650 tonnes, which Technip said was the biggest such capacity for flexible pipes in the world.

This would permit the laying of big-diameter pipelines at exceptionally great depths off Brazil.

Two of the ships, able to lay pipes under tension of 300 tonnes, are to be built in Brazil.

Analysts at brokers RBC Capital Markets commented that "Technip has the position of leader on the Brazilian market" and was familiar with working with Petrobras.

They said that the deal showed that Petrobras wanted to use flexible pipelines and that this should be good for factories operated by Technip in Brazil.

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