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Saudi Arabia and its neighbours hold most of the world's cheap oil and most of its idle capacity, and for sixty years they have tried to manage the price by agreeing how much each will pump. Since 2016 they have done so together with Russia in a group of twenty-two countries. The arrangement asks members with room to grow to hold back for the sake of the rest. In April 2026, with the Gulf at war and the price high, the United Arab Emirates left OPEC after nearly sixty years to pump what it likes. Iraq has threatened to follow, and Venezuela is considering it. The American president, who wants cheap petrol, says the United States is now more powerful than the cartel.
The group agreed on 6 September to hold production targets for October at September's level, after raising them every month since the war began. Actual output fell in August: Saudi Arabia cut production to its lowest of the year because Houthi attacks threaten its Red Sea export route, and Russia is pumping almost a million barrels a day below its quota. Iraq has formally asked for a much larger quota. Kazakhstan, which has long exceeded its own, says it is not discussing leaving. The organisation has lowered its forecast of demand for this year several times.
Price or volume. Saudi Arabia needs a high price to pay for its spending plans and has been willing to cut its own output to get one. The Emirates spent tens of billions of dollars raising capacity towards five million barrels a day while its quota stayed near three, and wants to sell the oil while the world still buys it.
Who carries the cuts. Quotas rest on baselines negotiated years ago. Iraq, Kazakhstan and others routinely pump above theirs; Saudi Arabia has made up the difference, and in 1986 and 2020 answered by flooding the market.
Washington. American presidents want low prices for motorists and have pressed Riyadh for more oil. American shale producers, however, need about sixty-five dollars a barrel, and the president has also claimed credit for their record output.
Oil markets left alone swing between glut and shortage, ruining producers and consumers in turn. Someone has to hold spare capacity and adjust supply, and only this group does. It added oil every month of the war while its own exports were under fire, which is the opposite of a cartel's behaviour. Members who leave enjoy the stable price that others pay for. Decisions are technical and made by consensus, not under pressure from any capital.
Leaving was a sovereign and strategic decision, not a political one. The country invested to produce five million barrels a day and was held to quotas set for a smaller industry. Demand for oil will peak within a generation and reserves left in the ground will be worth nothing. The Emirates will remain a responsible supplier and will invest its revenue in gas, chemicals and the industries that come after oil.
High oil prices are a tax on American families and a subsidy to hostile governments. The United States is the world's largest producer and no longer depends on the Gulf. The breaking of the cartel's discipline is good for consumers everywhere, and producers that want American protection should keep the oil flowing.
Iraq is rebuilding after forty years of war and sanctions and has the reserves to produce far more than its quota. It and others were assigned baselines when their industries were in ruins. If the richest member may walk out to pump at will, the poorest cannot be asked to hold back.
Saudi Arabia's leaves out that it has more than once crashed the price deliberately to discipline other producers; that the cut of October 2022 came a month before American elections, over Washington's objection, and kept Russia's oil revenue high during its war in Ukraine; and that the price it defends is set by what its own spending plans need.
The Emirati leaves out that it left at the moment a war had driven prices up, so that the cost of its extra barrels fell on others' restraint; that the departure followed years of rivalry with Riyadh over Yemen, Sudan and regional headquarters; and that it hosted the world's climate conference in 2023 and signed its pledge to move away from fossil fuels.
Washington's leaves out that its own shale industry needs the price the group defends, and said so; that it asked the same group for cuts in 2020 when the price collapsed; and that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which raised prices this year, followed American and Israeli strikes on Iran.
The smaller members' leaves out that several of them have pumped above quota for years while collecting the higher price, which is the complaint the others have against them.
Names and terms the sides do not share. This page keeps them out of its own voice.
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India, Japan and Europe paid the war premium, and will get the benefit if discipline breaks down.