Who Had OPEC Breaking Up?

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established on 14 September 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq. The organization consisted of five founding nations: Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
Since then OPEC has been the dominant force in oil markets, artificially controlling the production of oil to influence cost. This has contributed to significantly higher prices and greater market volatility.
Despite OPEC’s endurance and ability to adapt to market forces, it still faces pressures that undermined earlier commodity agreements- new sources of supply and evolving demand patterns.

United Arab Emirates says it will leave OPEC effective May 1

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it will leave the oil cartel OPEC and its wider OPEC+ group effective May 1, a move rumored for some time as the Emirates chafed under production restrictions and had increasingly frosty relations with neighboring Saudi Arabia.

The UAE had been a longtime member of OPEC, first through its emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1967 and later when the UAE became its own country in 1971.

But the UAE has been increasingly trying to leverage its own foreign policy in the Middle East that has contradicted some positions of Riyadh over time — particularly as Saudi Arabia began to directly challenge the Emirates in trying to draw foreign investments as the kingdom opened up under assertive Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

The UAE made the announcement via its state-run WAM news agency.

Breitbart

Sure the UAE had preexisting differences, but perhaps the decision was hastened because of recent changes in the world’s oil market. Like Venezuela now providing product to a yuuuuuge revamped US oil industry exporting record amounts to a thirsty world. So, has Trump broken OPEC?

Category: Middle East, Trump!