On April 28th, the United Arab Emirates announced that, starting from May 1st, the country will leave the OPEC and OPEC+ organisations, which unite the world's largest oil exporters, due to a comprehensive review of its production policy in the context of continued instability in the region in the near future
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries was established in 1960, and its main goal is to control oil production quotas, which make it possible to regulate the volume of black gold extraction and stabilise its prices on the world market. The OPEC+ format was launched in 2016 as a result of the dissatisfaction of oil‑producing countries with the market situation. Back then, a number of experts already called OPEC + beneficial primarily for American producers of shale oil and gas, since fixing the then prices for black gold (about $60 per barrel) while reducing global production was in their interests.
The UAE's exit from OPEC is not a unique case. In 2019, Qatar left the organisation, refocusing on exports of liquefied natural gas. In 2023, Angola withdrew from OPEC due to disagreements over an increase in the quota for oil production. Indonesia suspended its membership, reactivated it later and then decided to leave the structure over the past decade.
Leaving OPEC removes formal quota constraints of about 4m barrels of oil per day, allowing Abu Dhabi to produce the technically possible 5m barrels. Starting from May 1st, the UAE will also be able to choose its own export strategy and set prices without regard to other exporting countries.
Although the UAE authorities explain their decision by national interests, emphasising the instability of the situation in the region due to the conflict between the American‑Israeli coalition and Iran, the situation clearly has another beneficiary: it’s the United States, which is interested in falling oil prices. Since the start of aggression against Tehran, the latter stay at around $100 per barrel and have already provoked a serious increase in the cost of fuel in the US. This situation hurts the ratings of the current President and Republicans in general ahead of the congressional elections schedule for autumn 2026. Earlier, Trump repeatedly accused OPEC of manipulating the market, demanding that the organisation increase oil production quotas to lower prices.
In this paradigm, the OPEC collapse would be an ideal situation for Washington, since Trump will then have to fight not a company of several oil producing countries at once, but to communicate with each of them individually, making lucrative offers or exerting pressure. Such a course of events may lead to a drop in oil prices now, but in the long term it will make the process of forming the value of black gold dependent on the US foreign policy, which will negatively affect the construction of a new multipolar world.
