Brazil produced an average 2.105 million barrels of crude per day in December, up 2.9% from November, the ANP said. December's output, however, was down nearly 5% from December 2011.

Latin America's largest country struggled with declining oil production in 2012 because of falling productivity in a key offshore oil-producing region and maintenance shutdowns at aging platforms. The troubles have offset new production from the country's much-anticipated subsalt fields, a series of ultra-deepwater oil discoveries buried under a thick layer of salt off the country's Atlantic Ocean coast.

Brazil's subsalt region, where new wells have recently increased production, produced a record 242,700 barrels of crude oil per day in December, the ANP said.

Natural-gas production also reached a record high, jumping to 76.2 million cubic meters per day in December, the ANP said. That was up from the previous record of 73.3 million cubic meters per day in November.

Brazil produced about 754 million barrels of oil in 2012, down from 768 million barrels in 2011, the ANP said. The country's offshore and inland fields also produced 26 billion cubic meters of natural gas, up from 24 billion cubic meters the previous year, according to ANP.

Oil output in Brazil during 2012 also was affected by U.S. oil major Chevron Corp.'s (CVX) move to halt output at the Frade field, where a drilling accident in November 2011 caused an estimated 3,700 barrels of crude to seep into the Atlantic Ocean from cracks on the seabed. Chevron stopped production to better study the geology of the area after fresh seeps appeared in a separate area of the field in March 2012. The company is working with regulators to restart output.