UAE’s OPEC Exit: Pragmatic Oil Policy, Not ‘Stranded Assets’ Panic
The United Arab Emirates’ announcement on Tuesday that it will leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective May 1st sent shockwaves through the energy world. As the cartel’s third-largest oil producer, with a production capacity approaching five million barrels per day and ambitions to push higher, the UAE was no peripheral player. Abu Dhabi joined OPEC back in 1967 — before the UAE federation existed in its modern form — and the unified UAE carried that legacy for nearly six decades.
The exit decision was framed by Emirati officials as a “policy-driven evolution” in pursuit of “long-term strategic and economic vision”. Within hours, a familiar trope emerged among media commentators: the UAE, fearing the inexorable global march towards Net Zero, is racing to avoid ‘stranded assets’. Oil will be left in the ground, you see, because electric vehicles in China and Europe’s Green Deal will soon render the black stuff obsolete.
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