MEXICO CITY – Mexican state oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos said the value of its crude exports during the first eight months of the year totaled $15.4 billion, 55.5 percent less than in the same period of 2008.

Between January and August of last year, the oil firm took in crude-export revenues of $34.6 billion, Pemex said in a statement released Friday.

“The lower export revenues in the January-August 2009 period, compared with the historically high levels of 2008, are due mainly to the drop in the average price of the Mexican crude mix from $98.65 per barrel to $51.64,” the oil firm said.

Pemex added that the lower revenue figure also was caused by a 14.7 percent drop in export volumes from 1.44 million barrels per day to 1.23 million bpd during that same eight-month period.

During those same months, total crude production came in at 2.6 million bpd, down 7.8 percent from the output of 2.82 million bpd in the same period last year.

Total oil production in the country, excluding the offshore Cantarell field, came in at 1.89 million barrels per day, which Pemex said was a record high.

Cantarell used to be Mexico’s largest oil field, but it has entered into rapid decline in recent years and the Ku-Maloob-Zaap offshore field is now the country’s most productive.

Average natural gas production in the first eight months of the year totaled just over 7 billion cubic feet per day.

The company said its six refineries produced an average of 1.51 million barrels per day of oil derivatives, including gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and other products, a volume slightly higher that the output for the first eight months of last year.

The state owned company said an average of 1.75 million barrels per day of oil products valued at 324.7 billion pesos (some $24.05 billion) were sold in the domestic market.

Meanwhile, imports of oil products fell 9.3 percent to 504,800 barrels per day, including 318,700 bpd of gasoline imports, down 7 percent from the same period of 2008.

The value of gasoline imports rose to $5.62 billion, down 47.8 percent from the first eight months of last year.

Pemex also produced 8.2 million tons of petrochemical products.

In 2008, crude production in the country totaled 2.79 million barrels per day, 9.2 percent less than in 2007.