Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance companies operating under U.S. conservatorship, may need as much as $363 billion in Treasury Department aid through 2013, the Federal Housing Finance Agency said.

FHFA, which oversees the government-sponsored entities, offered the estimate as a worst-case scenario in an analysis modeled on the stress tests conducted on the nation’s biggest banks last year, the regulator said in a report released today. Aid to the two firms, which have drawn $148 billion since they were seized in 2008, could total as little as $221 billion in the event of a “strong near-term recovery,” FHFA said.

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