Mexico City, Aug 29 (EFE) Mexican authorities said they expect average daily crude output to fall in 2010 to 2.5 million barrels per day, which would represent a four percent drop compared with the first half of this year and a decline of 14 percent since 2008.

Mexican Energy Secretary Georgina Kessel and the head of state oil company Petrolos Mexicanos, or Pemex, Jesus Reyes Heroles, gave the same output estimate for 2010 in separate statements.

Both officials said the decline was due primarily to the steady depletion of the offshore Cantarell field, once Mexico's largest.

'We're seeing a significant decrease in ... Cantarell, and so for the coming year we're estimating that we're not going to be able to recover the levels of production we previously had,' Kessel said.

Kessel recalled that the energy ministry had forecast a sharp drop in production due to Cantarell's decline and predicted a gradual recovery over the next five years until a level of 3 million bpd is attained in 2015.

Nevertheless, she said 'at this time we're reviewing our figures and you'll know our forecast around the end of the year.'

For his part, Reyes Heroles said the country's oil output thus far this year has been 2.6 million barrels per day and that production next year is expected to fall to 2.5 million bpd.

The Pemex director noted that Cantarell used to account for 2.