Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA, the oil firm controlled by billionaire Eike Batista, said it may have found as much as 1.5 billion barrels of crude in one of its blocks off Brazil’s southeastern coast after drilling a well.

The BM-C-43 block, located in the shallow waters of the Campos Basin, may hold between 500 million and 1.5 billion barrels, based on well information and seismic data, Rio de Janeiro-based OGX said today in a regulatory filling. The company owns all of the block, according to its Web site.

OGX raised 5.87 billion reais ($3.43 billion) in its June 2008 initial public offering as investors bet Batista could match Brazil’s state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s success at finding oil. Batista, who owns about 62 percent of OGX, is plowing about $4 billion into crude exploration and production, with first oil output expected by late 2011.

The company earlier this month also said it found signs of crude in the BM-S-29 block, in the Santos Basin off the coast of Sao Paulo state. The company estimates it holds a total 4.8 billion barrels of oil and gas and plans to spend $2 billion during the next three years drilling about 50 wells, Chief Financial Officer Marcelo Faber Torres said Oct. 2.

The discovery may lead OGX to raise its estimates for oil and gas reserves, Subhojit Daripa, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in Sao Paulo, said.

“The probability of finding oil in the other blocks OGX owns in the Campos Basin is much larger now,” Daripa said in a telephone interview.

Other Blocks

Before today, Daripa expected the BM-C-43 block to hold 300 million barrels of oil. Morgan Stanley has an “overweight” recommendation on OGX.

Petrobras’s Tupi field, the biggest oil finding in the Americas since 1976, may hold as much as 8 billion barrels of oil.

OGX holds 22 exploratory blocks in Brazil’s Campos, Santos, Espirito Santo and Para-Maranhao basins with an offshore exploration area of 7,000 square kilometers. It also own seven onshore blocks.

Brazil’s proven crude reserves totaled 12.6 billion barrels last year, according to London-based BP Plc. The country’s so- called pre-salt oil region, where Tupi lies, may hold as many as 100 billion barrels, Brazilian Cabinet Chief Dilma Rousseff said Sept. 29.

OGX fell 4.3 percent, to 1,554 reais at 12:54 a.m. in Sao Paulo. The shares have almost tripled this year.

The oil producer also said it will start drilling at the BM-C-41 block, also in the Campos Basin, later this month. Daripa expects OGX to announce whether it found oil in the block by the end of this year.

To contact the reporters responsible for this story: Lucia Kassai at lkassai@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 14, 2009 13:11 EDT