OPEC daily basket price increases

VIENNA, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) daily basket price increased to 70.89 U.S. dollars a barrel on Monday, compared with 69.39 dollars on Friday, according to OPEC Secretariat calculations.

Also known as the OPEC reference basket of crude (ORB), the OPEC basket is a weighted average of oil prices from different OPEC members around the world, and used as an important benchmark for crude oil prices.

Currently it averages the oil prices from 14 countries, namely Algeria, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.