MEXICO CITY – Mexican state oil company Pemex said that in the first four months of the year the value of its crude exports totaled $6.14 billion, down 60.4 percent compared to the same period of 2008.

According to operating results announced in a press release on Thursday, Pemex exported an average of 1.25 million barrels of crude per day in that period, off 15.3 percent from the average exported in the first four months of 2008.

The average price of Mexico’s export crude mix was $40.80 per barrel for the first four months of the year, 52.8 percent less than the average price in January-April 2008, prior to the onset of the global economic crisis.

For the same periods in question, Pemex produced 2.66 million barrels per day this year, a decrease of 6.89 percent from the 2.85 million barrels of output in 2008.

Mexico is facing declining production at its main oil fields even as domestic demand for oil-derived products continues to increase.

The company’s main oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico – Cantarell, which has already entered into a steep decline, and Ku-Maloob-Zaap, which is expected to start declining next year – produced an average of 1.57 million barrels per day between January and April and accounted for 59 percent of total daily crude output, Pemex said.

Average natural gas production in the first four months of the year, meanwhile, totaled 7 billion cubic feet per day, up 5.8 percent compared with the same period of 2008.

The company said its six refineries produced an average of 1.55 million barrels per day of oil-derived products, including gasoline, diesel and fuel oil, up 2.4 percent compared to January-April of 2008.

Pemex said an average of 1.74 million barrels per day of petroleum products were sold in the domestic market, valued at 149.8 billion pesos (some $11.5 billion), while purchases of petroleum products abroad fell by 9.7 percent to 452,000 bpd.

Purchases of gasoline abroad totaled 302,700 bpd, down 4.6 percent compared with the same period of 2008, while the value of gasoline imports fell to $2.15 billion, down 50.3 percent from the first four months of 2008.

Pemex also produced 4.15 million tons of petrochemical products.

In 2008, crude production totaled 2.79 million barrels per day, down 9.2 percent from 2007. Mexico’s peak level of oil output came in 2003, when production totaled 3.5 million bpd.

Meanwhile, the company said its Pemex Exploration subsidiary discovered three oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico during the first four months of the year that jointly will contribute an average of 17,300 barrels of crude to total output. EFE