KUWAIT: The price of Kuwaiti oil went down by 67 cents to $72.27 per barrel on Monday after being at $72.94 per barrel last Friday, said Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said yesterday. At the global level, the price of the Brent crude went up by $3.20 to $73.08 per barrel, the same case with the West Texas Intermediate, which went up by $3.23 to $69.49 pb.

The OPEC daily basket price fell by 20 cents to $71.41 a barrel Monday, compared with $71.61 the previous Friday, the cartel said yesterday. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on its bulletin that the average annual rate of the basket last year hit $41.47 pd. The OPEC+ alliance decided, at its 23rd ministerial meeting on December 2, to maintain the current output plan, designed to increase the oil production gradually, with the conferees having decided to pursue increasing oil supplies by some 400,000 barrels per day.

The conferees had also underlined the paramount significance of utter compliance and compensation mechanism for the alliance's member states. The oil-producing countries of OPEC+ are expected to continue changing the production until amending the current level of 5.8 million bpd. They will re-examine market conditions and performance of the stakeholders at the 24th ministerial meeting, due to be held virtually on January 2. - KUNA