Average oil output for the year was 2.62 million barrels per day, an increase of four percent over 2016, while natural gas production hit 110 million cubic meters per day, up six percent on 2016, ANP said.

The shift to output from deep offshore fields known as pre-salt demonstrated Brazil's growing emphasis on the hard-to-access but huge reserves.

In December, "pre-salt oil and gas production for the first time reached more than half of the national production," ANP said.