MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. The UAE's decision to leave OPEC will not weaken the organization or lead to fundamental changes in the oil market, Karin Kneissl, former Austrian Foreign Minister and director of the G.O.R.K.I. Center at St. Petersburg State University, told TASS in an interview.

"This will not weaken OPEC. The organization has repeatedly encountered situations where some countries join and others leave, for example, Qatar and Angola," she said, recalling that OPEC will celebrate its 66th anniversary in September.

"This is nothing new. Countries come and go from OPEC, and this does not lead to fundamental changes in the oil market," she added.

"Angola wasn't in OPEC for very long. In Qatar's case, the reason was that the emirate had placed its bet on gas decades ago and wanted to be less dependent on the oil market. Then there was Indonesia--a very important country that had been a significant OPEC member for many years. But about 15 years ago, as I recall, Indonesia could no longer remain a net exporter: it needed oil for its domestic market and couldn't supply it to the world market," said the former Austrian Foreign Minister.

She pointed out that people had predicted the organization's "death" before.

"Perhaps you are familiar with the German proverb: 'Those declared dead often live the longest.' In my view, this applies very well to OPEC. Time and again, it has been said that the organization is finished and that the oil market will collapse. We hear similar claims now from many so-called experts: they believe that the exit of the UAE--which produces about 3.5 million barrels per day but would like to produce more--will damage OPEC," Kneissl noted.

"Why did the UAE want to leave? Was it a political decision or an economic one? In the oil sector, it's always a mixture of both: oil is never a purely economic issue because it plays too important a role. The UAE has the capacity to produce almost five million barrels per day, but they can't do so because OPEC countries negotiate quotas within OPEC," she concluded.

The UAE's decision to withdraw from OPEC and OPEC+ took effect on May 1, 2026. Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of ADNOC, the UAE's state oil company, stated that the UAE's decision to withdraw from the aforementioned organizations is in the sovereign interests of the state and is not directed against other countries.