KUWAIT: The price of Kuwaiti oil went up by $1.40 to $76.26 per barrel on Monday as opposed to the $74.86 pb price of last Friday, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) said yesterday. The price globally for the Brent crude went down by 76 cents to $74.39 per barrel, the West Texas Intermediate fared the same going down by 38 cents to $71.29 pb. OPEC's daily basket of crude rose by a dollar and three cents to reach $75.04 per barrel on Monday, as compared to $74.07 pb four days earlier, the cartel said.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said on its bulletin that the average annual rate of the basket last year hit $41.47 bpd. 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 bpd.

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, pending re-examination of market conditions and performance of the stakeholders at the 24th ministerial meeting, slated for January 2.

ISO certificate

In other news, Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) announced getting the ISO 31000-2018 certificate in risk management, to be the first institution in the Middle East that obtains this prestigious certificate. In a press release issued Monday, the state-owned corporation said it was keen on employing a comprehensive risk management system since 2006.

To achieve this objective, the corporation, in collaboration with specialized agencies, worked out new comprehensive risk management policy and framework and applied them in all subsidiaries, it revealed. The KPC pointed out that has also upgraded its risk management policies to help it in taking strategic decisions. ISO 31000 is a family of standards relating to risk management codified by the International Organization for Standardization. It provides principles and generic guidelines on managing risks faced by organizations. - KUNA