Mexico City, Oct 25 (EFE) Oil output in Mexico has continued to decline in 2009, coming in at an average of 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd) for the first nine months of the year, or almost 190,000 barrels less than the average for all of 2008, state oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos reported.
On a more positive note, Pemex noted Friday in its latest petroleum statistics report that during the month of September crude production averaged 2.59 million bpd, the highest level since May.

Mexican oil output has been falling steadily in recent years because no new important finds have been made and the shallow offshore Cantarell mega-field has declined from its peak at mid-decade.

The fall has put a strain on public finances because oil revenues fund roughly 30 percent of the federal budget.

Pemex said that between January and September around 59 percent of nationwide production, or 1.53 million bpd, corresponded to Maya heavy crude; 31 percent to Istmo light crude (810,000 bpd); and the rest to extra-light Olmeca crude (261,000 bpd).

During the first nine months of the year, oil exports came in at an average volume of 1.21 million bpd, equivalent to almost 47 percent of total production, and export revenues totalled $17.6 billion.

Between January and September, the average price of the Mexican crude export mix was $52.90 per barrel.

President Felipe Calderon last year sought to push a controversial plan through Congress to overhaul Pemex, including allowing the cash-strapped company to take on private oil firms as full partners in the exploration and drilling of new deepwater deposits in the Gulf of Mexico.

But leftist lawmakers fiercely opposed the initial bill, claiming that the aim of the government was to privatize Pemex, created after President Lazaro Cardenas’ nationalization of the oil industry in 1938.