The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it will leave the oil cartel OPEC and its wider OPEC+ group effective May 1, a move rumored for some time as the Emirates chaffed under production restrictions and increasingly had frostier relations with neighboring Saudi Arabia, AP reports.
The UAE had been a longtime member of OPEC, first through its emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1967 and later when the UAE became its own country in 1971.
But the UAE has been increasingly trying to leverage its own foreign policy in the Middle East that has contradicted some positions of Riyadh over time — particularly as Saudi Arabia began to directly challenge the Emirates in trying to draw foreign investments as the kingdom opened up under assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The UAE made the announcement via its state-run WAM news agency.
“This decision reflects the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile, including accelerated investment in domestic energy production, and reinforces its commitment to a responsible, reliable, and forward-looking role in global energy markets,” the UAE said.
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The United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday it quit OPEC and OPEC+, dealing a heavy blow to the oil exporting groups and their de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, at a time when the Iran war has caused a historic energy shock and unsettled the global economy, Reuters reports.
The stunning loss of the UAE, a longstanding OPEC member, could create disarray and weaken the group, which has usually sought to show a united front despite internal disagreements over a range of issues from geopolitics to production quotas.
OPEC Gulf producers have already been struggling to ship exports through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow chokepoint between Iran and Oman through which a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes, because of Iranian threats and attacks against vessels.
But the UAE exit from OPEC represents a big win for U.S. President Donald Trump, who has accused the organisation of "ripping off the rest of the world" by inflating oil prices.
Trump has also linked U.S. military support for the Gulf with oil prices, saying that while the U.S. defends OPEC members they "exploit this by imposing high oil prices".
The move came after the UAE, a regional business hub and one of Washington's most important allies, criticised fellow Arab states for not doing enough to protect it from numerous Iranian attacks during the war.
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser for the UAE president, criticised the Arab and Gulf response to the Iranian attacks in a session at the Gulf Influencers Forum on Monday.
"The Gulf Cooperation Council countries supported each other logistically, but politically and militarily, I think their position has been the weakest historically," Gargash said.
"I expect this weak stance from the Arab League and I am not surprised by it, but I haven't expected it from the (Gulf) Cooperation Council and I am surprised by it," he said.
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