RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras said Wednesday that it lost $2.1 billion in an eight-year kickback scheme that saw the firm’s executives taking bribes for awarding inflated contracts to suppliers.

The company released its long-delayed fourth-quarter financial results that included a write down of 6.2 billion reais — about $2.1 billion. It attributed the losses to a series of inflated contracts and other graft during the scheme it says ran from 2004 to 2012.

Releasing the audited results was the first step for Petrobras to try to regain investor confidence and access to international credit markets, which the debt-plagued company desperately needs to develop huge offshore oil fields discovered in recent years. The company was cut to junk status by Moody’s Investors Service in late February in large part because of the scandal.

The U.S.-based Eurasia Group said in a research note after the Petrobras results were published that “attention will now shift to measures that will bolster the company’s course correction in the longer-term.”