An Ecuadorian court has ordered US oil giant Chevron to pay $19.02 billion in compensation for environmental damage relating to its operations in the Amazon.

It is $1 billion more than the original fine imposed in 2011. The ruling – considered one of the biggest ever for environmental damage – was upheld by an appeals court in January. The increased fine came about after Chevron appealed the decision in Ecuador's Supreme Court.

"Due to an involuntary calculation error, the reparations now amount to $19,021,552,000," Agence France-Presse quoted an unnamed court official as saying.

Thousands of indigenous people and local farmers accused US oil company Texaco Petroleum Co. of contaminating large areas of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest when it operated in the region between 1964 and 1990.

Chevron inherited the lawsuit in 2001 when it bought Texaco, but it has denied responsibility for poisoning the land.

“Chevron has never conducted oil production operations in Ecuador, and its subsidiary Texaco Petroleum Co. fully remediated its share of environmental impacts arising from oil production operations prior to 1992,” Chevron said in a previous statement.

According to Dow Jones Newswires, Judge Lilia Ortiz said the $19.02 billion included about $900 million for the Amazon Defense Front, an activist group leading the class action against Chevron, and $8.6 billion because Chevron didn't apologize for the pollution.

“The stream was 50 meters from our house and chemicals were dumped into it. Oh, it stank! The water ran like a natural stream, but it was warm toxic waste water. We had headaches, dizziness, stomachaches…. Our children loved to fish and swim in the river. They came home covered in crude. We fried the fish they caught and the fish tasted like diesel.” - Shuar indigenous man living near Texaco Auca oil field

When Texaco began dumping produced water, local people who depend on the rivers for bathing, drinking, and cooking began reporting skin rashes and other ailments. Furthermore, many fish have disappeared from the rivers around the oil concession area. This has contributed to dire poverty among indigenous Ecuadorians who used to depend on fish as a major source of nutrition.