Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-05-04
Source: The Conversation – France in French (3)– By Patrice Geoffron, Professor of Economics, Université Paris Dauphine – PSL
By announcing that they were leaving the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, have the United Arab Emirates dealt a fatal blow to this structure born in September 1960? Or have they merely confirmed a geopolitical framework change, making this cartel less efficient than in the past? This decision comes in a context where the oil market is shaken by attacks from the United States and Israel on Iran, and where passage through the Strait of Hormuz remains uncertain
On April 28, 2026, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced their withdrawal from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) effective from the 1st.erIn May. This departure is the most consequential since the cartel’s creation in 1960. This decision also calls for exploring an issue that has been intensifying for a decade: Is OPEC still viable as an instrument of collective regulation of the global oil market?
Members of OPEC since 1967, the Emirates have long been counted among the pillars of the organization. In announcing their withdrawal, the Emirati authorities invoked a long-term vision and the evolution of their energy profile.
The result of years of friction
Behind this justification, however, lies an old frustration, fueled by years of friction over the leeway given to Abu Dhabi in its oil policy. This tension stems from the gap between the UAE’s production capacities and the constraints imposed by the cartel. The Emirates have heavily invested upstream to increase their production capacity from 4 to 5 million barrels per day by 2027. However, OPEC continued to favor cuts, limiting the country’s ability to fully capitalize on these investments. From the Emirati perspective, leaving OPEC thus aims to realign national economic interests by restoring the country’s freedom to fully utilize its capacities.
The war in the Middle East, which started in early 2026, acted as a trigger for a rupture that economic logic had long been preparing for. The UAE already harbored resentment towards their regional partners, considered too passive at a time when Abu Dhabi bore the brunt of the shock caused by Iranian and pro-Iranian attacks, continuing episodes that had occurredfrom 2022. This sequence highlighted the gap between discourses of solidarity and the weakness of the support provided by the Arab and Gulf States.
The foundations of the cartel
To measure the impact of the UAE’s departure, it is necessary to return to the economic foundations of the cartel. OPEC seeks to maximize collective rent by regulating the global supply, in order to maintain prices at a level higher than what would result from uncoordinated competition. Two conditions are necessary for this objective:
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excess production capacities that can be mobilized, thespare capacities,
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and the acceptance, by the members, of short-term sacrifices in favor of more predictable revenues in the medium term.
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Technically, the Emirates were among the very few members, alongside Saudi Arabia, with substantial excess capacity. Their departure therefore mechanically weakens OPEC’s operational credibility. Freed from the constraint of quotas, Abu Dhabi will now be able to behave like any non-OPEC producer, maximizing its extraction. This additional production, potentially between 500,000 and 800,000 barrels per day in the medium term, could weigh on prices and force the remaining members into even more delicate trade-offs between collective discipline and national interests.
An asset called the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline
The geopolitical context makes this defection even more problematic. The conflict triggered at the end of February 2026 between Israel, the United States, and Iran partially closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 20% of the world’s oil flows usually passed (and also liquefied natural gas). This mechanically increased the strategic value of supplies capable of bypassing this bottleneck.
In this context, the Emirates have an important asset with the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, which allows them to export a substantial portion of their crude oil outside of Hormuz via the port of Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman. The demand for exportable crude oil without the constraint of passing through the strait is thereby strengthened, which makes the choice of production freed from OPEC constraints all the more attractive for Abu Dhabi. This advantage could furthermore endure beyond the conflict, if a lasting risk premium continues to weigh on the Persian Gulf.
The end of OPEC’s hold
However, it would be inaccurate to see the withdrawal of the UAE as the founding event of an entirely new crisis. The weakening of OPEC is an old process, noticeable sinceoil counter-shockfrom the mid-1980s and accelerated in the 2010s by the American shale oil revolution.
Over the past decade, the United States has become the world’s largest oil producer, surpassing Saudi Arabia and Russia, with production exceeding 13 million barrels per day in 2025. This development has reduced OPEC’s ability to control prices, as any production cut by the cartel can be partially offset by an increase in American supply, which is not subject to quotas. That is precisely why the organization had to form in 2016, together with Russia and nine other countries, an expanded alliance, described asOPEC+, an actor who no longer had sufficient control over the market, on her own.
The series of defections that have occurred since then confirms, however, an erosion: Qatar in 2019, Ecuador in 2020, then Angola in 2024. With each departure, the organization has maintained its formal structure, but its effective coordination capacity has been reduced. Moreover, out of the twenty-two members of OPEC+, three (Iran, Venezuela, and Libya) were already exempt from quotas due to their geopolitical constraints, which further limited the scope of the common rules.
The Trump variable and the reshaping of alliances
To these economic and structural factors is added renewed American political pressure. Donald Trump, having returned to the White House in January 2025, actively sought to weaken OPEC through a strategy combining anti-cartel rhetoric and security conditionality. The logic displayed by Trump from his return was simple: since the United States provides the military umbrella for the Gulf monarchies, they should in return adopt an oil policy favorable to American consumers, that is to say low prices.
This geopolitical equation resonates particularly in the Emirates. The withdrawal from OPEC can thus be read as a signal addressed to Washington: Abu Dhabi chooses the side of its strategic partners rather than the solidarity of the cartel under Saudi leadership. From this perspective, this departure can be interpreted as a diplomatic victory for the Trump administration in its intimidation war against OPEC. Donald Trump also did not fail to praise this decision on Truth Social.
This reshuffle also reflects the depth of the frictions between Mohammed bin Zayed (President of the United Arab Emirates and Emir of Abu Dhabi) and Mohammed bin Salman (Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia). Disagreements have accumulated since 2019 over the war in Yemen, normalization with Israel, economic diversification strategies, and relations with Tehran.
What remains of OPEC?
After the departure of the UAE, OPEC has only eleven members left. Its share in global production has significantly declined, dropping from 55% in the 1970s to around 30% today. Although OPEC+ forms an expanded circle and retains formal cohesion, the credibility of its commitments now depends even more on the ability and willingness of Saudi Arabia to single-handedly assume the role ofswing producer. This constitutes a considerable burden for a country whose budgetary needs have been raised as its ambitions became clearVision 2030and who will not come out unscathed from the shock of the ongoing conflict.
If other members were to follow the example of the Emirates, the structure of OPEC could weaken to the point of losing a large part of its operational relevance. Attention is particularly turning to Kuwait and Iraq, who might in turn question the benefits of their participation.
It would nevertheless be premature to announce the disappearance of the cartel. OPEC has shown, on several occasions, aresilience capacitythat observers have often underestimated. Every major crisis has so far led to adaptation rather than dissolution. For its African members (Nigeria, Libya, Gabon, Congo, Equatorial Guinea), its value is moreover not only economic. The organization also offers them international visibility, shared access to market data, and a diplomatic coordination platform that no other forum could easily replace.
Towards a post-cartel market?
The real issue goes beyond the mere institutional survival of OPEC. It concerns the governance of the oil market in a more fractured, more conflict-ridden world, under the pressure of the energy transition. In a post-cartel market, prices would be more determined by supply and demand fundamentals, but also by the sovereign decisions of large uncoordinated producers such as the United States, Canada, or Brazil, joined by the United Arab Emirates.
This would open up a more volatile market, marked by more abrupt investment cycles and increased vulnerability to shocks. This volatility would have asymmetric effects. In the short term, it could be favorable to certain producers outside the cartel and to some industrial consumers, while destabilizing the economies most dependent on oil revenues, that is to say the residual core of OPEC.
What future in the era of decarbonization?
In a world aiming for carbon neutrality by 2050, every producer is encouraged to capitalize on its reserves before they are declassified due to the rise of renewables and electromobility. The Emirates also position their withdrawal within this logic: producing more today, while accelerating investments in solar,nuclearand decarbonized hydrogen. This race to valorize fossil assets, a kind ofgreen paradox, is structurally poorly compatible with a logic of collective production restriction.
If OPEC is not dead by April 28, 2026, the withdrawal of the United Arab Emirates marks a decisive turning point in the history of an organization founded in Baghdad in 1960 to enable Southern countries to regain control of their resources. Subject to American geopolitical pressures, undermined by divergent interests among its members, and increasingly unable to discipline the most ambitious producers, it is entering a phase of heightened vulnerability.
The institution of an ancient world?
In a world where every major producer is tempted to maximize its oil rent before the energy transition reduces its value, the very idea of collective discipline seems increasingly fragile. This fragility is all the more visible since thestrategic disorder maintained by Donald Trump, through its trade wars, its pressures on its partners, and its unpredictability, accelerates the reshaping of the international system instead of stabilizing it.
However, this reorganization benefits not only producers eager to break free from collective frameworks: it also favors China, towards which many states increasingly turn as they seek markets, partners, and more predictable rules of the game, as well as energy sources less hysterical than hydrocarbons, in the face of American instability.
In this new environment, OPEC no longer appears as the central instrument of an organized oil South, but as a defensive structure, contested from within and overwhelmed by a broader redistribution of economic and geopolitical power relations. It is therefore not yet dead, but it risks becoming, faster than expected, the institution of an old world.
Patrice Geoffron is a founding member of the Alliance for Road Decarbonization. He sits on various scientific councils: CEA, CRE, Engie.
–ref. After the departure of the United Arab Emirates, are we witnessing the end of OPEC? And will we have to regret it?https://theconversation.com/after-the-departure-of-the-united-arab-emirates-is-it-the-end-of-opec-and-will-we-have-to-regret-it-282032