My article on Telos: the UAE's exit from OPEC is not what you think
I have just published an article on Telos, the online review founded by political scientist Zaki Laïdi, about the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC and what it reveals about Emirati energy strategy.
Telos
Telos is a French online review of analysis and debate founded by political scientist Zaki Laïdi. It publishes contributions from academics, researchers and experts on major contemporary economic, geopolitical and social issues. It is a demanding space for reflection, at the crossroads of the academic world and public debate.
The argument: the UAE’s exit from OPEC, the culmination of a fifteen-year trajectory
On 28 April 2026, the UAE announced their withdrawal from OPEC and OPEC+. The press saw it as a rupture linked to the Iran-Hormuz war. In this article, I show that this reading is misleading: the exit is the culmination of a trajectory begun in 2021, when Abu Dhabi publicly challenged the cartel’s quotas for the first time.
The Emirati strategy rests on a clear trade-off: maximising present oil rent before its exhaustion, by freeing itself from collective disciplines that constrain production. ADNOC invested $150 billion to raise its capacity to 5 million barrels per day. The timing of the exit — during the closure of Hormuz — is not opportunistic: it is the least disruptive moment for other producers.
The article also questions the Emirati narrative on the energy transition. Despite the COP28 presidency and investments in Masdar, ADNOC’s fossil/renewables capex ratio remains 7 to 1 — well above that of Western majors. Gulf producers are partners during the transition, not partners of the transition. Cooperation must be built on genuinely shared interest segments: civil nuclear, maritime security, critical minerals, low-carbon hydrogen.