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LAGO AGRIO, Ecuador (Reuters) – A suite in Ecuador's Amazon told Chevron Corp on weekday to clear more than $8 1000000000 in environmental damages, the plaintiffs' attorney said, but the U.S. lubricator colossus will fight on in a meet seen as a global effort case.

Chevron vowed to appeal, message the long-running housing -- which dates from production in the chain nation during the 1970s and 1980s and has spawned accusations of filthy tricks and bribery -- could drag on for eld more.

Activists portray the housing as a fight for justice against rich polluters but Chevron says it is more to do with selfishness and greedy trial lawyers. It has triggered attendant legal action in U.S. courts and planetary arbitration.

"In whatever moments of this long, arduous and costly battle, it appeared impossible to attain the imagine a actuality ... ostensibly this news is first to change," Pablo Fajardo, a attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an emailed statement.

"First, (the judge) has institute that Chevron is responsible and blameable for the existing environmental damage in the Amazon. Second, it has sequential Chevron to clear the sum of more than $8 1000000000 to repair the environmental damage."

Chevron, however, has no assets in Ecuador, plans to appeal, and believes it is unlikely ever to pay.

Its shares traded 1.3 percent higher to near at $96.95 on weekday as investors shrugged off news of the suite ruling. The stock had been raised by gains in crude oil, and analysts said a test finding in the suite housing was likely eld away.

The plaintiffs, who originally demanded $27 1000000000 in the lawsuit, had said they would essay to grab Chevron assets around the concern erst brachiate with a approbatory judgment from the Lago Agrio court.

But their housing is complicated by a judgement terminal hebdomad from planetary arbitrators arrangement Ecuador to alter enforcement of whatever judgment.

The saga is existence monitored by the lubricator industry for precedents that could lead to other large claims against lubricator companies around the concern that hit been accused of infectious the countries where they operate.

Judge Nicolas Zambrano issued the 187-page judgement from Sucumbios rustic suite in the hardscrabble Amazon municipality of Lago Agrio. His room is on the ordinal news of a run-down building which houses a connector floor cards called The Mirage.

Chevron did not give a figure from the ruling, but said it was "illegitimate" and "unenforceable in whatever suite that observes the conception of law."

The California-based company had income of $198 1000000000 and net acquire of $19 1000000000 in 2010.

LENGTHY APPEALS

The housing highlights the risks of doing business in Ecuador, where left President Rafael Correa ofttimes feuds with the clannish sector and has publically sided with the plaintiffs.

Residents of Ecuador's Amazon region hit said imperfect production practices by Texaco, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, caused damage to panoramic areas of camp and harmed indigenous grouping in the 1970s and 1980s.

"This judgement is an grey step. The appeals could go on for whatever years," said John van Schaik, lubricator shrink at Medley Global Advisors in New York.

"But the fact that the Lago Agrio suite ruled in souvenir of the plaintiffs sends a communication to lubricator companies that, more than ever, they requirement to be beatific corporate citizens," he added.

"The judgement shows that times hit changed, and companies requirement to take environmental concerns seriously."

Texaco first struck lubricator in Ecuador in 1967 and started pumping in 1972 as conception of a association with the state. The company operated in Ecuador until 1990. Soon after, it overturned its deal of the association over to the Ecuadorean government.

State lubricator company Petroecuador has continued production in the Atlantic over the 20 eld since Texaco pulled out.

"If you countenance at the Exxon-Valdez case, that took 20 eld to settle," said comedienne Good, lubricator shrink at Morningstar in Chicago. "I conceive there were expectations that the initial judgments would go against Chevron and I conceive the housing is feat to endeavor discover over a very daylong time."

Chevron says it cleaned up all the pits it was responsible for. But the soil meet under the opencast around whatever past squander pools ease has a black lustre and carries the eye-watering stench of oil.

Farmers feature they cannot raise crops or eutherian in these areas cod to the contamination.

One lubricator analyst, Fadel Gheit of New York-based Oil & Gas Research Oppenheimer & Co, said he had uttered to Chevron Chairman and CEO John technologist recently about the case.

He "was exceptionally combative and absolutely adamant. He said 'This is not feat to happen on my watch. There is no way I am feat to clear this category of money,'" Gheit told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by metropolis Silva in Quito, Alexandra Valencia and Hugh Bronstein in Bogota, Anna Driver in Houston, Daniel Wallis in Caracas, composition by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Kieran philologue and Matthew Lewis)

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