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Vanessa Cai

The United Arab Emirates’ decision to leave a global cartel of major oil-exporting countries is seen to reflect a widening fracture within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The UAE announced on Tuesday that it would leave the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and the wider Opec+ alliance, effective on Friday.
The country joined the group in 1971, though one of its emirates – Abu Dhabi – joined in 1967.
The UAE’s Ministry of Infrastructure said in a statement that the decision was based on the country’s national interests and its commitment to meeting global market demand. The UAE is one of the world’s biggest oil producers and exporters.
The decision follows the departures of several other Opec members in recent years. Qatar terminated its membership in 2019, while Ecuador officially withdrew a year later and Angola left in 2024.
Sun Degang, director of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University, said the UAE’s exit from Opec showed that “the cohesion of the GCC has encountered serious problems”.
The move “would deal a significant blow to Opec and also seriously undermine the GCC’s integration”, he said.
The GCC was established in 1981 to foster cooperation, integration and unity among six Arab states in the Persian Gulf: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.
However, there has been an intensifying rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as the former close allies each pursue competing visions of regional leadership.
Sun noted that Saudi Arabia and the UAE were locked in economic competition and had been at odds on key regional issues, such as the conflicts in Sudan and Yemen.
“In terms of economic development and industrial structure, there is a high degree of similarity: both are seeking to transition from oil-based to non-oil economies, which has led to homogeneous competition,” he said.
Sun added that amid the US-Israel war on Iran, the UAE “has arguably borne the greatest losses”.
“From the UAE’s perspective, the lack of protection from fellow GCC countries has been a source of disappointment.”


The UAE was targeted by Iranian missile and drone attacks when Tehran struck US allies in the region in retaliation for the US-Israeli offensive.
Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on April 14. He said the UAE was committed to maintaining coordination with China to restore regional stability, safeguard international shipping, and prevent further disruption to the global economy, according to a readout from China’s foreign ministry.
This week, GCC leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia for a summit to discuss response to Iranian strikes, their first in-person meeting since the conflict began.
The UAE “is increasingly distancing itself from the Saudi-led regional order”, Sun noted. “The UAE may shift its strategic emphasis towards closer cooperation with the United States, while its relations with other GCC states could become relatively more distant.”
Sun also pointed to the UAE’s dissatisfaction with production quotas.
Opec sets production ceilings and individual quotas for its members to manage global oil supply and influence prices. The UAE is currently producing 3.4 million barrels a day, but aims to lift this capacity to about 5 million barrels per day by 2027.
In a social media post on Wednesday, Fan Hongda, director of the China-Middle East Centre at Shaoxing University, cautioned that the UAE’s withdrawal was “likely to bring it even greater trouble”.
“It’s regrettable that this once-prosperous nation failed to learn from the fierce attacks it suffered in the early stages of this Iran war. It seems it chose the wrong side,” he wrote.
Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an article published on Wednesday that the exit “deals a symbolic blow to an economic alliance that is strained by the pressures of regional war and fractured diplomacy”.
He also noted that the Qatari and the Emirati decisions “could conceivably lead other members to consider whether they might be better off without the cartel”.
Additional reporting by Orange Wang


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While the UAE’s departure from oil cartel is disruptive, it could also further drive apart Gulf Cooperation Council members, observer says


While the UAE’s departure from oil cartel is disruptive, it could also further drive apart Gulf Cooperation Council members, observer says.


Gulf Cooperation Council

United Arab Emirates (UAE)

Middle East

Saudi Arabia

The UAE’s exit from Opec could bring ‘even bigger trouble’: Chinese expert

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}While the UAE’s departure from oil cartel is disruptive, it could also further drive apart Gulf Cooperation Council members, observer says

While the UAE’s departure from oil cartel is disruptive, it could also further drive apart Gulf Cooperation Council members, observer says