The United Arab Emirates has announced its exit from OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, starting from May 1, 2026. This is a historic decision: the Emirates were among the most important members of the organization, of which they had been part since 1967, almost 60 years. The decision comes at a time of maximum tension for global energy markets, with the Strait of Hormuz still blocked due to the war between the US and Iran, and represents a blow to OPEC, which loses a member that represented around 12% of the total production of the 12-country organization (which will now drop to 11 members).
The Emirates Energy Minister, Suhail Al Mazrouei, justified the decision as a sovereign choice based on a “review of production policy”, declaring that the abandonment was organized at this time so that, with the closure of Hormuz, the impact on the oil market would be less.
The goal of the Emirates, therefore, is to free itself from the rigid constraints imposed by the cartel – whose members control approximately 79% of global oil reserves – so as to acquire greater autonomy in deciding its own oil production. It is not the first time that a member country abandons OPEC: this episode, however, risks triggering a chain reaction, with further abandonments by states such as Nigeria or Venezuela.
How OPEC works and which countries are part of the cartel
OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is an organization founded in 1960 with the aim of coordinating and unifying the oil policies of member countries, ensuring the stabilization of oil markets. The five founding members were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Currently, the cartel is made up of 12 member countries, which from 1 May 2026 will drop to 11, with the exit of the United Arab Emirates: Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela.
According to the latest annual bulletin released by OPEC, the cartel members control approximately 79.22% of global oil reserves, while producing 36.17% of the world’s crude oil. The operating mechanism is rather simple: member countries meet periodically (under normal conditions every 4-6 weeks) and collectively decide to increase or reduce oil production to manipulate prices on the market and maintain balanced supply volumes.
For this reason, OPEC operates exactly like a cartel, in which countries agree to withhold barrels from the market to keep prices artificially high (and thus profit more from the sale). If, for example, prices are too low, OPEC reduces production, so that supply decreases and, consequently, prices rise. This is because, if all countries produced to the maximum of their capacity, the laws of supply and demand would cause prices to collapse, drastically reducing everyone’s revenues.
In addition to OPEC, there is an even larger organization, OPEC+, which brings together all OPEC members plus a number of allied countries, including Russia: the United Arab Emirates is also leaving OPEC+.
Why the Emirates chose to leave OPEC and what are the possible consequences
The decision of the United Arab Emirates does not come as a surprise: over the years, in fact, the country has repeatedly tried to increase its oil production quotas, repeatedly comparing itself with Saudi Arabia (leader de facto of the organization) who systematically blocked these requests. Moreover, the UAE has invested huge sums to increase its production capacity and has always proven reluctant to accept the constraints imposed by the Organization.
Abandoning OPEC, therefore, will allow the Emirates to free themselves from the rigid quotas established by the cartel, so as to acquire greater flexibility and decide their oil production autonomously. According to the latest data from the IEA (the International Energy Agency), in March the country extracted around 2.37 million barrels of oil per day, compared to a capacity of around 4.3 million barrels per day.
In short, being a member of OPEC obliges countries to respect common decisions relating to the increase or decrease in oil production: leaving the organization means being able to act autonomously and respond more quickly to market volatility.
According to analysts, however, the UAE’s decision could be a double-edged sword: since the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, the Emirates have no way to greatly increase its oil exports. At the same time, OPEC decisions will now be almost completely in the hands of Saudi Arabia, which controls 31% of the cartel’s production capacity.
It must be said, however, that leaving almost certainly risks reducing OPEC’s ability to manipulate oil prices, with the real possibility that price volatility will increase – especially if the cartel has less influence to control the oil market, losing a major member that accounted for 12% of the organization’s total production.
Among other things, perhaps not surprisingly, this weakening could benefit the United States, the largest exporter of hydrocarbons in the world and often in competition with OPEC, repeatedly criticized by US President Donald Trump.
The precedents: which are the countries that have already left OPEC
The United Arab Emirates’ exit from OPEC is not the first case of abandonment of the cartel (and it may not be the last): looking at the Gulf countries alone, Qatar had already left the organization in 2019, arguing that its position as a producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) made its membership in OPEC, mainly focused on oil, irrelevant.
But throughout its history, OPEC has seen other states abandon or suspend participation in the cartel, mainly for reasons related to production quotas and financial costs. The most recent case is that of Angola, which effectively withdrew on 1 January 2024, but cases of reversible suspension also include Ecuador, which withdrew in December 1992 complaining of the financial burden (around 2 million dollars per year), and then reactivated participation in 2007 and definitively withdrew on 1 January 2020.
Indonesia, a member since 1962, first suspended its membership in 2009 because it had become a net importer of oil (unable to meet the imposed production quotas) and then reactivated and suspended membership again in 2016, when OPEC requested a 5% production reduction.
The case of the Emirates, however, risks triggering a chain effect: according to analysts, even Nigeria and Venezuela, now more self-sufficient in production, could soon leave the organization in search of greater autonomy and flexibility.
