Ecuador president to help residents suing Chevron

QUITO (Reuters) - Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said on Tuesday he will help Amazon jungle dwellers gather evidence for their $6 billion lawsuit against Chevron Corp., which charges the U.S. oil company with polluting their communities.

"We will not allow any more preying on our environment and our people," Correa said in a statement after meeting with plaintiffs' representatives.

The statement added that the government will help the plaintiffs compile evidence to prove their allegations and said Correa plans to visit affected areas later this month.

The jungle residents, including the Cofan Indian tribe, accuse Chevron's Texaco subsidiary of dumping 18 billion gallons of oil-laden water into the environment in Ecuador from 1972 to 1992. The nearly 30,000 jungle dwellers demand damages to help with clean-up costs.

Texaco merged with Chevron in 2001 and the company denies any wrongdoing.

"Texaco complied with its obligations and successfully remediated its share of the oil operations in the Oriente," said Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson.

"After the remediation was shown to be successful, the Government of Ecuador released Texaco of any environmental liabilities. We believe the Government of Ecuador should comply with its contractual obligations," he added.

The long-running lawsuit is being litigated at a local court and plaintiffs' lawyers said a ruling could come as early as the second half of this year.

Correa, a leftist former economy minister, has worried foreign oil companies with pledges to rework contracts in an effort to boost the government's share of oil revenues.

Chevron no longer operates in Ecuador, South America's fifth largest oil producer with an output of around 530,000 barrels of oil per day.

Other oil firms operating in Ecuador are Spain's Repsol and Brazil's Petrobras.