United Arab Emirates internally discussing his departure from OPEC due to clashes with Saudi Arabiaaccording to her publication Wall Street Journal. In particular, among other things, the American newspaper reports that the UAE is divided over the level of production, since under the current policy they are pumping much less oil than they would like. In fact, the Emirates clashed with the Saudis last October when OPEC+ (including Russia) decided to drastically cut oil production to prop up prices.

The UAE has publicly supported the production cuts, but US officials said the Emirates privately told them it wanted to produce more oil, as Washington wanted, but faced opposition from Saudi Arabia.

According to Dina Esfandiari, senior adviser for the Middle East and North Africa of the International Crisis Group, among other things, Emiratis are “worried about Saudi Arabia, which is acting against their interests.” According to the publication, other points of contention between the UAE and Saudi Arabia are Yemen, as well as the desire of the Emirates to build a military base on an island in the Bab el-Madeb Strait at the southern tip of the Red Sea. against which Saudi Arabian officials oppose. It is noted that after the publication of the WSJ report, oil prices fell sharply and are traded with losses of about 2%.

In particular, the May contract for Brent crude fell 1.8% to $83.2 per barrel, while the April contract for US WTI crude fell 1.9% to $76.7 per barrel. It is recalled that, according to Reuters, OPEC oil production rose in February due to a further recovery in supply in Nigeria, despite the commitment of top producers to the agreement of the broader OPEC + alliance to cut production to support the market. Last month, OPEC produced 28.97 million bpd, with production up 150,000 bpd from January. Production is still down by more than 700,000 bpd since September.