The United Arab Emirates announced on April 28 that it will withdraw from both OPEC and the OPEC+ Declaration of Cooperation, effective May 1. The decision was conveyed through state news agency WAM and confirmed by Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei in subsequent media appearances.
The exit ends approximately 59 years of UAE membership, dating to Abu Dhabi’s accession in 1967, and follows Qatar’s 2019 departure and Angola’s January 2024 withdrawal in a sequence of three exits over seven years.
Mazrouei framed the move as a sovereign policy decision driven by capacity expansion. ADNOC Group CEO Sultan Al Jaber characterized it as alignment with “true production capability and national interest.” Reuters reporting confirmed that no prior consultation was conducted with Saudi Arabia.
The announcement landed one day before a scheduled OPEC+ videoconference and during the active aftermath of the 2026 Iran war, with OPEC’s March production having collapsed 27 percent to 20.79 million barrels per day, the largest single-month supply contraction in the organization’s history. Brent had reached a wartime high near $126 per barrel during the conflict before retreating toward $111 by the announcement date.
UAE and OPEC: A Long and Tumultuous History
Abu Dhabi joined OPEC as the ninth member in 1967, four years after exports first flowed from the Jebel Dhanna terminal. The seat transferred to the federal UAE following its formation in December 1971, with ADNOC established days earlier by Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
The 1973 Arab oil embargo and the subsequent quadrupling of OPEC reference prices established Abu Dhabi as a reliable Saudi-aligned producer, a positioning that persisted through the 1986 price collapse, the 1990 Gulf War, and the 1998 Riyadh Pact that followed the OPEC basket’s collapse to single digits.
Tensions surfaced repeatedly over quota basing. The OPEC quota system, introduced in 1982, was calibrated against Abu Dhabi production while applied to UAE-wide output, an asymmetry that produced chronic compliance disputes through the 1980s.
