Fabulously rich on just a whiff of oil
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Original Article)
NONE of Australia’s billionaires have the flash of Brazil’s richest man, one Eike Batista.
Once a business partner of Melbourne’s own Robert Champion de Crespigny when the gold industry was the fancy of them both, Batista has since gone on to become fabulously rich from a bagful of derring-do investments covering water, power and, like his fellow billionaire, Fortescue’s Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, iron ore.
Along the way Batista became a champion offshore powerboat racer and married a Playboy cover girl and Carnaval queen sensation, Luma de Oliveira, which is probably more interesting than knowing his father was a former mining minister and revered executive of the Brazilian mining giant, Vale.
Sadly, the marriage ended in divorce in 2004. We know the two had been deeply in love because one year at Carnaval de Oliveira led the throng wearing a dog collar sporting Eike’s name.
All that is by way of background to Batista’s latest plaything, OGX Petroleo, his oil exploration company floated in Brazil last week and which now has a market value of more than $US20 billion ($21.3 billion).
It’s worth repeating that we are talking about an exploration company, albeit one that can now be called Brazil’s second biggest “oil” company.
There is no production, just the high hopes that OGX (all of Batista’s companies have the multiplier “X” in their name) will match Brazil’s Petrobas in making monster oil finds in the offshore Santos basin.
Batista rolled the dice a while back and outbid everyone else for a huge portfolio of exploration licences in the Santos, where Petrobas now reckons its Tupi oilfield could be 8 billion barrels of oil (think 2.5 times Bass Strait) and its Carioca discovery as much 30 billion barrels (think 10 times Bass Strait).
OGX plans to drill its first wells later this year and report discoveries next year. If only it were so easy. Having said that, there is no MEDIUM dvd doubting that the Petrobas discoveries, even …continue reading