Mumbai: Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, has agreed to pay out 75 per cent of a $507.5 million damages to affected fishermen to settle the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, media reports said citing lawyers of Exxon and the plaintiffs.

Under a negotiated partial settlement, Exxon will release about $383 million for distribution to the nearly 33,000 commercial fishermen in Prince William Sound and others who sued Exxon after the worst tanker crash in US history.

Exxon Mobile also had to take a $290 million charge in the second quarter to get an earlier court order that awarded a $2.5 billion damage on Exxon renegotiated.

Lawyers for the fishermen said they will continue to battle with Exxon over another $70 million, as well as potential interest of $488 million on the Supreme Court judgment.

Exxon will in effect pay only $54 million - the largest single payout - under terms of a parallel settlement made in 1991 with seven Seattle-based fish-processing companies who were the former plaintiffs.

The settlement was negotiated by David Oesting of Anchorage, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs and Los Angeles-based lawyers for Exxon.

The Exxon Valdez spilled some 34,000 tonnes of crude oil, the clean up of which was expected to cost around $2.5 billion.

A jury had in 1994 awarded plaintiffs $5 billion in damages, which was later cut in half by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court in late June reduced the total to $507 million in a 5-3 vote. The justices also sent the case to the lower courts to handle the disposition of the $507.5 million judgment, which the court said as the ''maximum'' allowed.

The high court also left the issue of interest to the lower courts. However the courts resolved the interest question. Exxon likely owes interest at least from the date of the Supreme Court ruling this summer.