Leading the wedding party is the US largest oil group Exxon which could pay up to $80bn to takeover the second largest oil group Mobil in the world's largest industrial merger.

A merged Exxon-Mobil would have 20.743 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves, and 1.631 million barrels per day of oil and gas production.

Oil companies in the US and Europe have been forced to consolidate because of low oil prices.

The deal comes after British Petroleum's pending acquisition of Chicago-based Amoco.

Slick deal

Now, hot on their heels is Belgian petrochemicals group PetroFina which has been taken over by Total, France's second largest energy group.

The deal valued Petrofina at $11bn, almost 50% more than the group was worth just two weeks ago.

PetroFina, which employs some 15,000 staff worldwide, is a medium-sized oil group, while Total, roughly three times the size, ranks among the second league of oil companies, beneath premier leaders like Exxon and Royal Dutch/Shell.

Franco-German alliance

German pharmaceuticals giant Hoechst is also expected to announce a merger with its French counterpart Rhône-Poulenc.

The companies want to merge their life sciences businesses, including their pharmaceutical and agrochemical divisions.

The union would create one of the world's largest pharmaceuticals companies in terms of sales, surpassing even the UK's Glaxo Wellcome.

The companies are to reveal the final details of the merge in Strasbourg.

With annual sales of around $20bn, the new company, reportedly called Avantis, will rank joint number one with the Swiss Novartis in the life-sciences sector.

Souces close to the deal say Hoechst chairman Jürgen Dormann will be chairman while Rhône-Poulenc's Jean-Rene Fourtou, will be vice-chairman.

But French and German unions have attacked the plan for fear of layoffs. Hoechst employs 118,000 workers while Rhône-Poulence has 68,000.