UAE says it will leave OPEC in major blow to global oil cartel
by Vaughn Cockayne · The Washington TimesThe United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it will exit OPEC, leaving the cartel that controls production among most of the world’s largest oil producers without its third-largest producer and weakening its leverage over the global oil market.
The UAE Energy Ministry said the decision, which takes effect Friday and has been rumored for a while, aims to accelerate investment in the country’s energy sector and address its long-term economic needs.
“This decision follows a comprehensive review of the UAE’s production policy and its current and future capacity and is based on our national interest and our commitment to contributing effectively to meeting the market’s pressing needs,” the ministry wrote in a statement.
Emirati officials have complained for years that OPEC’s quotas have limited their export capacity and limited their industry’s growth. Abu Dhabi joined the cartel in 1967, before the UAE was formed in 1971. The UAE had been the group’s third-largest oil producer, behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
The decision was made after Iran, another OPEC member, closed the Strait of Hormuz, further limiting the UAE’s oil exports.
“Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” Capital Economics wrote in an analysis. “The ties binding OPEC members together have loosened,” it said, particularly after Qatar withdrew from the cartel in 2019.
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Regional politics are also likely at play. The UAE has had increasingly frosty relations with Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, over political and economic matters in the Middle East, even after both came under attack by Iran during the war.
The cartel controls about 38% of global oil production, giving it immense influence over international energy supply and prices.
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OPEC sets production limits for each of the 12 member countries. By collectively agreeing to export less oil, member countries reduce global supply and increase prices. The cartel can also order production increases to lower prices.
The UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC won’t necessarily have any immediate effect on markets. That’s because world oil supplies are sharply constrained by the war in Iran, which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil supplies, including much of the UAE’s, is transported. On Tuesday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $111 a barrel, or more than 50% above its prewar price.
OPEC’s market power had been waning in recent years as the U.S. ramped up production. Although Saudi Arabia had been producing more than 10 million barrels of oil a day before the war, the U.S. pumps more than 13 million barrels a day.
President Trump has been a steady critic of the cartel during his two terms in the White House.
The UAE had been producing about 3.4 million barrels of crude a day just before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began Feb. 28. Analysts say it has the capacity to produce roughly 5 million barrels a day.
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In its announcement, made via its state-run WAM news agency, the UAE said it also would leave the wider OPEC+ group, which Russia had led to try to stabilize oil prices.
The UAE’s withdrawal removes one of OPEC’s few members with the ability to quickly increase production, said Jorge Leon, senior vice president and head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy.
“A structurally weaker OPEC, with less spare capacity concentrated within the group, will find it increasingly difficult to calibrate supply and stabilize prices,” Mr. Leon said.
The cartel’s other member countries are Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
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Saudi Arabia and the UAE have increasingly competed over economic issues and regional politics, particularly in the Red Sea area. The two countries jointly fought Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in 2015. However, the coalition broke down into recriminations in December 2025, when Saudi Arabia bombed what it described as a weapons shipment bound for Yemeni separatists backed by the UAE.
As tensions rose in recent months, Saudi broadcasters long based in Dubai, the economic hub of the UAE, pulled back to the kingdom.
“This exit of OPEC fits into the UAE need for flexibility with key energy consumers as well — including a future relationship with China and a more competitive relationship with Saudi Arabia,” said Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Saudi Arabia and OPEC had no immediate reaction, but Emirati Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei insisted his country’s decision did not stem from any dispute with its Persian Gulf neighbor.
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“We’ve been working together for years and years. We have the highest respect for the Saudis for leading OPEC,” Mr. al-Mazrouei told CNBC.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.