Mexico City - Mexican state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos said it expects crude production in 2015 to come in at an average of 2.29 million barrels per day, down from 2.43 million bpd last year, the National Hydrocarbons Commission, or CNH, said.

Natural gas production also will fall this year to 6.36 billion cubic feet per day, compared to 6.53 billion cfd in 2014, the CNH said last week, citing the Pemex Exploration and Production's Quarterly Operational Program.

Pemex produced 2.43 million bpd last year, down 3.7 percent from 2013 and 90,000 bpd lower than the initial 2014 forecast of 2.52 million bpd.

In January, Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray announced spending cuts this year equivalent to 0.7 percent of gross domestic product, including a 62-billion-peso ($4.15-billion) reduction in Pemex's budget.

Mexico enacted an energy overhaul in 2014 that opened the sector to private investment for the first time since it was nationalized in 1938.

Supporters of the overhaul say the participation of major multinational energy companies under profit- and production-sharing contracts and licenses is needed to develop promising deepwater oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and shale resources and boost sagging crude output.

Crude production has fallen by nearly 30 percent from a high of 3.38 million barrels per day in 2004 due to a sharp decline in output at offshore Cantarell, formerly Mexico's most productive field, and a lack of investment.

But the move to end Pemex's monopoly is a thorny issue in Mexico because the state-owned firm has long been a symbol of national sovereignty.

The opening of the oil sector has coincided with a sharp drop in global crude prices, which makes investment in the energy sector less attractive, and the depreciation of the peso relative to the U.S. dollar.