Crude oil price today: Following developments among OPEC members, the crude oil price witnessed buying during the early morning session on Wednesday. WTI crude oil prices regained the psychological $100/bbl level, hitting a three-week high. The WTI crude oil price today opened flat, but soon gained momentum, reaching an intraday high of $100.36/bbl. The Brent crude oil price also hit an intraday high of $104.95/bbl, rising more than 1.25% against the intraday low of $103.68 per barrel.
According to market experts, crude oil prices are rising due to fresh uncertainty over Middle East tensions. They said that amid the ongoing US-Iran war and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, an important OPEC member, the UAE, has announced its intention to leave OPEC, effective from 1st May 2026. However, they said that appreciation in the crude oil price will be limited as the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC won’t necessarily have any immediate effects in markets.
Market experts believe world oil supplies are sharply constrained by the war in Iran, which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil supplies — including much of the UAE’s — is transported. On Tuesday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $111 a barrel, or more than 50% above its prewar price.
Regional politics weigh on OPEC
“Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” Capital Economics wrote in an analysis. “The ties binding OPEC members together have loosened,” it said, particularly after Qatar withdrew from the cartel in 2019.
Regional politics are also likely at play. The UAE has had increasingly frosty relations with Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, over political and economic matters in the Mideast, even after both came under attack by fellow OPEC member Iran during the war.
No impact on the global oil market
“This decision reflects the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile, including accelerated investment in domestic energy production,” the UAE said, adding that it would bring “additional production to market in a gradual and measured manner, aligned with demand and market conditions.”
The UAE’s withdrawal removes one of OPEC’s few members with the ability to quickly increase production, said Jorge Leon, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy.
“A structurally weaker OPEC, with less spare capacity concentrated within the group, will find it increasingly difficult to calibrate supply and stabilize prices,” he said.
The UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC won’t necessarily have any immediate effects on markets. That’s because world oil supplies are sharply constrained by the war in Iran, which has closed off the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil supplies — including much of the UAE’s — is transported. On Tuesday, Brent crude, the international benchmark, traded above $111 a barrel, or more than 50% above its prewar price.
OPEC accounts for roughly 40% of the world’s oil output, but its market power has been waning in recent years as the United States ramped up production. While Saudi Arabia had been producing more than 10 million barrels of oil a day before the war, the U.S. pumps more than 13 million barrels a day.
U.S. President Donald Trump has been a steady critic of the cartel during his two terms in the White House.
The UAE, which joined OPEC through its emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1967, had been producing around 3.4 million barrels of crude a day just before the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran began on Feb. 28. Analysts say it has the capacity to produce roughly 5 million barrels a day.
In its announcement on Tuesday, made via its state-run WAM news agency, the UAE said it also would leave the wider OPEC group, which Russia had led to try to stabilise oil prices.
Saudi Arabia-UAE conflict
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have increasingly competed over economic issues and regional politics, particularly in the Red Sea area. The two countries had jointly fought against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels in 2015. However, that coalition broke down into recriminations in late December, when Saudi Arabia bombed what it described as a weapons shipment bound for Yemeni separatists backed by the UAE.
As tensions rose in recent months, Saudi broadcasters long based in Dubai, the economic hub of the UAE, have pulled back to the kingdom.
“This exit of OPEC fits into the UAE’s need for flexibility with key energy consumers as well — including a future relationship with China and a more competitive relationship with Saudi Arabia,” said Karen Young, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy.
While Saudi Arabia and OPEC had no immediate reaction, Emirati Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei insisted his country’s decision did not stem from any dispute with its Gulf neighbour.
“We’ve been working together for years and years. We have the highest respect for the Saudis for leading OPEC,” al-Mazrouei told CNBC.
However, the UAE sent its foreign minister rather than its ruler to a Gulf Arab leaders’ meeting held Tuesday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, hosted by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
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