* Labor prosecutors say chemical contamination killed 60
* Government shut down pesticide plant in 2002
* Shell doubts link between chemicals, worker injury
By Peter Murphy
BRASILIA, March 11 (Reuters) - Oil producer Shell and German chemical company BASF agreed on Monday topay compensation that could reach 620 million reais ($316million) to workers exposed over three decades to toxicchemicals at a Brazil plant, prosecutors said.
Brazil's public labor prosecution service said 60 peoplewere killed from prolonged exposure to chemicals used to makepesticides at the plant. The factory began operating in the1970s in Paulinia in Sao Paulo state until governmentauthorities ordered it to shut down in 2002.
The companies have agreed to pay individual compensation to1,068 former workers at the plant and provide them with lifetimemedical care, which prosecutors estimated could total up to 420million reais.
Shell and BASF would also make a separate 200 million reaispayment for collective moral damages which would be used tobuild a maternity clinic in Paulinia and for donations tospecial health centers.
Shell has maintained throughout the case, brought in 2007,that it believed there was no link between the operations at theplant and injury to workers' health, but it said it regrettedthe environmental contamination that occurred.
Seventy-six workers pursuing individual court action mustalso decide within 30 days whether to take the compensationoffer which would require them to drop their own cases.
Shell built and operated the factory until it sold it tochemicals company Cyanamid in 1995, which in turn sold it toBASF in 2000. BASF produced pesticides at the plant for only twoyears before it was shut down.
Shell became the owner of the site again in 2008 when itbought it from BASF but the plant remains shut.
Spokespeople for Shell and BASF based in Brazil confirmedthe two companies had agreed to the compensation deal, whose total amount would be worked out over the next 10 days.
Gislaine Rossetti, a spokeswoman at BASF, told Reuters thecompanies would not disclose the proportion of the totalcompensation each would pay. Shell would be solely responsiblefor reparations linked to soil pollution, she said.
