New Delhi, April 24 -- Five global oil giants - Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Gazprom and BP - likely contributed to the deadly 1998 heatwave in India, the worst among the preceding 50 years, according to a new study.

The five companies caused the intensity of the five hottest days to increase by 0.08 C, the paper published in Nature noted.

The event caused heavy economic losses. Chevron, for example, was responsible for causing losses amounting to $1.9 billion from the 1998 heatwave.

Further, the companies were also responsible for increasing the intensity of heatwaves of 2003 in France and Russia in 2010, and in United States in 2012, increasing the intensity of the five hottest days by 0.11 C, 0.27 C, and 0.09 C, with Chevron ...