UAE announces exit from OPEC weakening cartel’s bargaining power

29 APRIL 2026

The United Arab Emirates said it will leave the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) effective May 1, stripping the oil cartel of its third-largest producer and further weakening its leverage over global oil supplies and prices.
The UAE’s decision had been rumored as a possibility for some time, as it pushed back in recent years against OPEC production quotas it felt had been too low — meaning it wasn’t able to sell as much oil to the world as it had wanted.
The UAE, which joined OPEC through its emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1967, had been producing around 3.4 million barrels of crude a day just before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began on Feb. 28. Analysts say it has capacity to produce 5 million barrels a day.
UAE said it also would leave the wider OPEC+ group, which Russia had led to try to stabilize oil prices.
The UAE has had increasingly frosty relations with Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, over political and economic matters in the Mideast, even after both came under attack by fellow OPEC member Iran during the war.

Other members who left OPEC

Angola officially withdrew from OPEC on January 1, 2024, ending its 16-year membership (since 2007). The decision followed a dispute over production quotas, where Angola refused to accept lower output limits imposed by the cartel.
Qatar withdrew from the cartel in 2019, after nearly 60 years of membership to focus on its natural gas strategy.
Indonesia first joined OPEC in 1962 but has a volatile history with the organization, suspending its membership twice due to becoming a net oil importer. It suspended membership in 2009, rejoined briefly in January 2016, and again suspended its membership in November 2016 to avoid production cuts.

No immediate effect

The UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC won’t necessarily have any immediate effects in markets because 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 28 April 2026, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $111 a barrel, or more than 50% above its pre-war price.

U.S. oil production

OPEC accounts for roughly 40% of the world’s oil output, but its market power had been waning in recent years as the United States ramped up production.
While 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.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been a steady critic of the cartel during his two terms.