India's largest crude oil producer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is on the verge of reporting "losses' on every barrel of crude oil that it sells due to the high subsidy burden that it has to bear. This would be the first time that ONGC will post negative margins on crude oil sales. This loss comes at a time when crude oil producers around the world are making windfall profits due to record highs in oil prices. The company's margin on oil sales is currently at an all-time low of around 15 cents per barrel, almost a tenth of what it was two years ago. Globally oil companies around the world have margins of over $2 per barrel. "If oil prices increase any further, our margins on oil sales will turn negative,' ONGC Chairman and Managing Director RS Sharma told Business Standard. The company plans to write to the petroleum ministry soon urgently seeking a reduction in the subsidy share paid to the oil marketing companies, he said. The near-doubling of crude oil prices that government-owned refiners paid in the last 14 months and the cap on retail prices of petrol, diesel, LPG and kerosene have resulted in retail losses of the oil marketing companies rising to around Rs 72,000 crore this financial year, compared with around Rs 54,000 crore in the last financial year. ONGC bears 33 per cent of this burden. The company's gross realisations from a barrel of crude oil in the current quarter are projected to go up to around $93 per barrel, while the projected net realisation