State-owned Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company (KIPIC) announced on Sunday in a post on X the departure of chief executive Waleed Al Bader who had led the company since 2021.

It was not immediately clear who would replace Al Bader in the role.

During Al Bader's tenure KIPIC brought the giant Al Zour refinery online in late 2022 and the Gulf Arab state became a major exporter of refined products, especially very low sulphur fuel oil used in shipping.

Kuwait's oil exports hit a record high of about 720,000 metric tons (158,000 barrels per day) in February, data from analytics firm Kpler showed.

Al Bader, a veteran of Kuwait's energy sector, had previously also served as chief executive of the Kuwait National Petroleum Company, which he left in 2022.

(Reporting and writing by Andrew Mills; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)