By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice College
The United Arab Emirates’ choice to withdraw from the Group of Petroleum Exporting Nations will go away the oil cartel weakened at an important time. It additionally illustrates the continuing tensions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer and de facto chief.
The UAE introduced on April 28, 2026, that it’ll depart OPEC and OPEC+, an expanded grouping which incorporates Russia, on Might 1, depriving the teams of their third- and fourth-largest oil producer, respectively.
Although the transfer could seem abrupt, as a shut observer of the UAE and intra-Gulf politics, I imagine Abu Dhabi’s choice to depart OPEC and go it alone was within the playing cards for some time and follows years of Abu Dhabi’s complaints concerning the cartel.
The announcement additionally follows years of divergence between Emirati and Saudi oil insurance policies, in addition to the expansion of aggressive rivalries between the 2 international locations over wider regional questions. This rift between the 2 largest Sunni Gulf states burst into the open in December 2025, when competing visions for safety in Yemen threatened to reignite civil battle within the war-torn nation.
Unity within the face of Iranian assaults since then shouldn’t masks that underlying break up, of which the UAE’s OPEC choice is merely the most recent manifestation.
The world’s most outstanding cartel
OPEC shaped in 1960 as a manner for the primary oil producers to set manufacturing limits and subsequently management the value of crude all over the world.
The UAE has been a member of OPEC for the reason that seven-emirate federation was established in 1971, though Abu Dhabi – the emirate that holds 95% of Emirati oil reserves – has been a member since 1967.
At its peak within the mid- and late-Nineteen Seventies, OPEC performed a strong function in reshaping the steadiness of energy between oil producers and customers, and countering Western dominance in a postcolonial setting of useful resource nationalization.
Whereas different members have withdrawn from OPEC lately – equivalent to Qatar in 2019 and Angola in 2024 – the affect of the UAE’s departure is on a far higher scale, affecting about 12% of OPEC’s complete oil output.
Moreover, the exit of the UAE removes one of many few main swing producers from OPEC, weakening the group’s means to reply quickly to altering market circumstances sooner or later.
Diverging Gulf priorities
The UAE has been signaling a possible break up for at the least 5 years, when variations of opinion with Saudi Arabia on how one can handle oil coverage emerged forward of a November 2020 OPEC+ summit. The rift grew to become brazenly seen throughout a subsequent assembly of OPEC+ international locations in July 2021.
In each instances, the UAE wished to extend oil manufacturing – which had been sharply curtailed by OPEC members through the COVID-19 pandemic – whereas the Saudis sought to keep up excessive costs by protecting output decrease and costs greater.
Partially, this displays the totally different circumstances of the 2 Gulf nations. The Saudis are reliant on greater oil costs to drive the revenues wanted to fund its lavish finances and pay for enormous infrastructure initiatives like its Imaginative and prescient 2030 challenge. The Emirati financial system, then again, is extra diversified and fewer straight depending on oil revenues.
As an alternative, Abu Dhabi has invested closely lately to broaden capability to have the ability to enhance oil manufacturing from 3.4 million barrels a day earlier than the U.S.-Israel battle towards Iran to five million barrels a day by 2027 – and probably greater in a while. This displays a want to monetize its reserves and transfer the oil to market to keep away from the danger of stranded property ought to world demand fall in any future transition away from fossil fuels.
Shorn of the constraints of OPEC quotas, which the Emiratis have chafed towards for years, officers in Abu Dhabi will have the ability to enhance manufacturing ought to it want to take action as soon as the deadlock with Iran is damaged and the Strait of Hormuz absolutely reopens.
Publish-Iran battle regional shifts
It’s clear that UAE management is at first intent on doubling down on the pursuit of its nationwide pursuits, with an emphasis on prioritizing ties with the U.S. – and sure additionally Israel – over these with international locations that Abu Dhabi feels mirror an previous world it’s now searching for to depart behind.
Whereas the battle in Iran could have briefly overshadowed the eruption of Saudi-Emirati tensions over Yemen and visions for the area, the rift had not been resolved previous to the U.S. and Israeli launch of navy operations on Feb. 28.
Feedback by outstanding Emiratis have urged that officers within the UAE have paid shut consideration to which international locations have, of their view, stepped as much as help the UAE in occasions of disaster, and which haven’t.
The OPEC choice thus displays a calculation in Abu Dhabi that there isn’t a longer any utility in remaining a part of a Saudi-dominated group. The UAE’s reconsideration of different memberships, such because the Arab League, Group of Islamic Convention and even the Gulf Cooperation Council, could also be subsequent, because the UAE and different regional international locations start to suppose forward to an unsure post-war panorama.
In regards to the Writer:
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Fellow for the Center East on the Baker Institute, Rice College
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