Falling oil prices brought more gloom to the energy capital Tuesday, as oil field services giant Halliburton said it has laid off an unspecified number of Houston workers and producer Swift Energy announced a 75 percent cut to its 2015 budget.

Crude oil has fallen by more than half since summer, as production from the U.S. and other nations has sent more oil to market than a struggling global economy can consume.

The tumble in oil prices has an upside evident in block-lettering along roads everywhere: Regular gasoline averaged $2.12 a gallon nationwide on Tuesday, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge, down from $3.31 a year ago

But that good news for fuel consuming individuals and businesses is hitting the oil sector hard.

And the slim possibility that U.S. production might fall and provide some price support suffered a setback Tuesday when an Energy Department agency reported that it doesn't expect domestic output to drop significantly.

The Energy Information Administration predicts that while U.S. crude oil production growth is poised to slow, it won't reverse. The agency projects that the country will produce 9.3 million barrels of oil per day in 2015 - about 700,000 barrels a day higher than the 2014 average.

The agency forecasts U.S. crude oil production of 9.5 million barrels per day in 2016 - the highest since 1970.

Meanwhile, oil exporting countries led by Saudi Arabia have fought to maintain market share rather than cutting production, producing a global glut that has sent international benchmark crude down to within pennies of the U.S. price.

U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate ended New York trading Tuesday down 18 cents at $45.89 per barrel, its lowest close since April 2009. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 84 cents to $46.59 in European trading. On Jan. 13, 2014, West Texas Intermediate sold for $91.80 and Brent for $106.75.

Brent crude traded at an average of $6.48 per barrel more than U.S. crude oil in 2014 and at $10.66 more in 2013.

For a brief time during the trading day Tuesday, though, West Texas Intermediate edged slightly higher than Brent.

The new approximate parity between international and U.S. crude cuts into a competitive advantage U.S. refineries and petrochemical plants have enjoyed in recent years as U.S. production rose while a long-standing ban on most crude exports kept U.S. oil in the United States, said Tom Kloza of Oil Price Information Service.

"The consequences of this collapse, in addition to inflicting a lot of pain on people who are tied to prices, is that it has pretty much demolished a lot of the benefits of being a U.S. company," Kloza said, "though there's still a lot of natural gas advantage."

U.S.-produced natural gas, which is both fuel and feedstock for refineries and petrochemical plants, remains a bargain at around $3, well below its price on many overseas markets. In New York trading Tuesday, natural gas rose 14.8 cents to 2.943 per million British thermal units.

The crude price crash, however, is taking a growing toll on oil producers and the companies that supply their equipment and services.

Houston-based Swift Energy on Tuesday became the latest producer to announce budget cuts, saying it expects to spend about $125 million looking for oil this year, 75 percent less than in 2014.

Analysts at Moody's Investor Service recently forecast that if crude remains below $60 per barrel, average spending by producers could fall by as much as 40 percent.

Halliburton Co., one of the world's largest oil field services companies, said Tuesday that cheap oil and a slow drilling market had forced it to cut jobs in Houston. "While these reductions are difficult, we believe they are necessary to work through this challenging market," Halliburton spokeswoman Emily Mir said in an emailed statement. She declined to say how many jobs were cut in Houston.

Halliburton announced in December it would lay off 1,000 international employees. Hercules Offshore and oil field services firms owned by OFS Energy Fund also plan cuts.

Ryan Holeywell contributed to this story.