By Mirna Fahmy
On April 28, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stunned the oil and business news that it will officially exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on May 1, to secure its own future at a time when regional stability and collective oil policy are failing to protect its national interests.
Iran’s ongoing conflict with the Gulf states has reshaped the region’s political and economic landscape. For the UAE, the consequences have been immediate and severe. Iranian strikes on civilian infrastructure have made it the most targeted country in the region, yet Emirati officials say their allies did little to help.
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz hit the UAE harder than almost any other country. UAE oil exports fell 44% in March alone. The collective response of OPEC was muted as production policy remained essentially flat, with no meaningful adjustment to help members whose exports were physically cut off.
OPEC was founded in Baghdad, Iraq, in September 1960 by five major oil-producing developing nations: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonzo of Venezuela and Abdullah Al-Tariki of Saudi Arabia were credited with its creation, sometimes they were called the “founding fathers.”
The goal was to unify petroleum policies to secure fair prices, ensure stable income for producing nations, and defend against price cuts imposed by Western oil companies (known as the “Seven Sisters”). OPEC operates primarily through production quotas, which are designed to prevent oversupply and keep prices high enough to balance members’ national budgets.
Dr. Fuad Rouhani of Iran was appointed as the first Secretary-General of OPEC. And thereafter, Saudi Arabia remained the de facto leader and most influential member of OPEC for years up till today.
Even as the blockade choked off its primary export route, the UAE was still legally bound by OPEC quotas that prevented it from pumping more oil to compensate for lost revenue. The country does have an alternative, the Habshan–Fujairah pipeline, which runs overland to the Gulf of Oman and bypasses the Strait of Hormuz entirely. But being able to move oil is one thing. Being allowed to produce more of it is another. OPEC’s rules don’t bend for individual emergencies.
The UAE was unable to employ its full production capability of 5 million barrels per day, while having the infrastructure to keep oil flow at 3 or 3.5 million barrels per day.
Staying in OPEC meant waiting for Saudi Arabia, Russia, and others to agree on quota changes before it could act in its own interest. That wait, in the middle of a conflict and an economic crisis, was simply no longer acceptable.
The timing looks counterintuitive at first as exiting a cartel when the Strait is already closed and the exports are already constrained is meaningless. The UAE’s energy minister Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei offered a candid answer: leaving now will have a “limited impact” on global oil prices, precisely because physical shipping is already disrupted across the board.
The market is already in turmoil. Quitting OPEC in this environment avoids the sharp price pressure and political fallout that would normally follow a major producer’s departure under normal conditions. In effect, the chaos provides cover.
But the more strategic calculation looks beyond the blockade. When the Strait of Hormuz eventually reopens, the UAE wants to be unconstrained and ready to move immediately. If it were still inside OPEC at that moment, it would need to negotiate quota increases before it could ramp up sales. By leaving now, it ensures that the moment the tankers can sail again, it can flood the market on its own terms and begin recovering lost revenue without delay.
Behind the immediate crisis lies a longer-term ambition the UAE has been quietly building toward for years which is strategic autonomy.
The goal is sovereign flexibility — the freedom to produce and sell oil according to its own economic needs, without waiting for consensus from Riyadh or Moscow. Targeting 5 million barrels per day, the UAE wants to maximize oil revenues now, using that income to fund an aggressive transition away from oil dependency, investing in clean energy, technology, and a diversified economy designed to thrive in a post-carbon future.
There is also a geopolitical dimension. By stepping outside the OPEC price-fixing framework, the UAE can position itself more naturally alongside Western allies and global markets. It can now sign long-term, fixed-volume supply deals with the U.S., Israel, or India without asking for OPEC’s permission. This makes the UAE a more attractive, “unregulated” energy partner.
It wants to be seen not as a cartel member protecting production floors, but as a “reliable and forward-looking” energy partner — closer in spirit to a responsible middle power than a traditional petro-state.
Besides OPEC, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the regional bloc meant to present a united front, was criticized openly by UAE officials for offering what they described as “weak” political and military support.
According to Emirati presidential adviser Anwar Gargash and regional analysts, the UAE expected something very specific: the GCC needed to stop using polite diplomatic language and move toward a clear, shared security position — one where an attack on any member is treated as an attack on all.
The UAE expected the GCC to activate its Unified Military Command and coordinate a collective response to Iranian strikes. Instead, individual member states kept pursuing their own relationships with Iran, even as the UAE faced thousands of missiles. UAE officials wanted a single, firm diplomatic front that made future cooperation with Iran conditional on it stopping its aggression. They also wanted clear red lines — a collective warning that any attack on civilian infrastructure or energy hubs would trigger a joint response. None of that happened.
The UAE also pushed for the GCC to stop letting outside powers shape the Gulf’s security priorities. It wanted unified support for the United States as the Gulf’s primary defense partner, rather than internal disagreements about whether to support or obstruct defensive action. It wanted Iran’s attacks treated with the same seriousness as any existential threat, not the muted response that Emirati officials compared, unfavorably, to the Arab League. And it demanded a stronger, united commitment to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open for all members.
This frustration did not appear overnight. It built up over years as each GCC member chose its own economic and diplomatic interests over a shared military response.
Oman has historically maintained the closest ties with Iran of any GCC member. It has long served as a quiet go-between for negotiations. Trade between Oman and Iran reached over $2 billion in 2024 and was on track to pass $2.5 billion by early 2026. In May 2025, the two countries signed 18 cooperation agreements covering energy, defense, and mining. Oman even opposed a proposed “Gulf Union” in 2012 precisely because it wanted to protect its independent foreign policy and its role as a regional balancer.
Qatar’s situation is different but equally constraining. It shares the world’s largest gas field — the South Pars/North Dome reservoir directly with Iran. This makes conflict with Tehran a threat to Qatar’s own infrastructure and economy. As a result, Qatar has consistently chosen to manage tensions rather than escalate them, maintaining high-level visits with Iranian officials and mediating nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington, even when other Gulf states pushed for isolation.
Kuwait, before it was directly targeted in recent regional escalations, had also pursued warmer ties with Iran out of practical necessity. It historically signed agreements with Tehran for gas pipelines to address its own domestic energy shortages. Kuwait also has deep religious and social ties with Iran that predate the GCC, and those connections have pushed it toward caution in any confrontation.
Saudi Arabia’s position is more complicated. Riyadh has long been Iran’s chief rival in the region, but in 2023 it signed a normalization deal with Tehran, brokered by China. For the UAE, this was a turning point. The deal gave Saudi Arabia a kind of diplomatic protection, and Emirati officials felt it left the UAE more exposed as Iran’s primary target. On its southern border with Yemen, Saudi Arabia has maintained relative quiet through a combination of UN-brokered arrangements and direct financial transfers — including periodic payments of hundreds of millions of dollars toward Yemeni state salaries, even in Houthi-controlled areas, as part of a broader annual commitment. While Houthi forces have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea, they have largely avoided Saudi infrastructure, and many analysts connect this restraint to those ongoing payments.
The 2023 Saudi-Iran deal is not just still active — it has deepened. A trilateral committee involving China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia met as recently as December 2025 in Tehran to confirm that all parties were keeping to the original agreement. For Riyadh, China’s involvement acts as a guarantee. If Iran broke the deal, it would damage its relationship with Beijing, which it cannot afford under heavy Western sanctions. Saudi Arabia’s refusal in early 2026 to allow its airspace or bases to be used for strikes against Iran reflects the logic that protecting the Beijing agreement matters more than joining a regional confrontation.
The Breaking Point with Saudi Arabia
The UAE’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has also deteriorated sharply, and analysts say this was a major factor in the OPEC exit.
The two countries have been drifting apart for years over oil policy. Saudi Arabia needs high oil prices, roughly $80 to $100 per barrel, to fund its Vision 2030 economic transformation. The UAE has a different problem. It has spent $150 billion building up a production capacity of 5 million barrels per day, and it wants to use that capacity now, before global demand for oil begins to fall permanently. Saudi-led production limits have prevented it from doing that, and Emirati officials have made clear they view those limits as unfair.
The tension became something more serious in late 2025. Saudi forces reportedly struck a weapons convoy belonging to the Southern Transitional Council, the UAE’s main partner in Yemen. Saudi Arabia then demanded a full UAE withdrawal from Yemeni territory. Emirati officials saw this not as a security request but as an attempt to force submission. For the UAE, it was one step too far.
The case for staying inside a Saudi-dominated OPEC simply collapsed because of the failure of mutual defense, the divergence of oil interests, and direct military friction in Yemen.
Leaving OPEC is just one step. Criticizing the GCC stance might be the next step of the UAE to leave it along with the Arab League. The UAE feels other Arab states, particularly Egypt, offered little support to Gulf nations facing security threats from Iran when UAE didn’t hesitate to provide all its support when they were encountering harsh times. Many Emirati analysts have repeated that the Arab League should be dismantled and that UAE should look for its interests first more than a collective interest that didn’t put it at any benefit in the face of the Iranian attacks.