The price of gasoline is set to drop as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) appears poised to collapse, experts predict. OPEC has long kept crude oil prices higher than they would otherwise be. If this pans out, it will be a major victory for the Trump administration, which is resetting global energy markets.
The news of a probable end of the oil cartel also vindicates President Donald Trump, who has previously said OPEC is “ripping off the rest of the world.” For a long time, the president has led a pressure campaign against OPEC, which has vast crude oil reserves that could easily be pumped. But the organization restricts the number of barrels of oil that each country may pump each day. That keeps gasoline prices elevated across the U.S. and much of the rest of the world.
Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at The PRICE Futures Group and a FOX Business contributor said, “Over time, the breakup of the cartel should cause gas prices to fall. With more player pricing, oil only being contained by market forces should lead to an ounce of supply and lower prices. Competition is good as it lowers prices and collusion by producers raises prices.”
WHAT A UAE EXIT FROM OPEC MEANS AND WHY IT MATTERS
The poster child for the possible beginning of the end of OPEC came in late April when the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced it would quit OPEC and OPEC+ on May 1.
Flynn linked the U.S.-Israel war with Iran as a historic marker. “I think that is a real possibility and more OPEC countries want to control their own destiny. In fact, when we look back at one of the strategic victories from Operation Epic Fury, it is that it has changed the face of the OPEC cartel forever and shifted energy dominance from the cartel back into our hemisphere. The UAE was getting tired of playing second fiddle to Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the cartel. The UEA wants to assert its leadership and has a competitive goal to not only increase oil production in the long term, but it wants to assert itself as the leader of the region.”
The simple act of the UAE quitting the cartel led immediately to OPEC losing out in a big way.
“[The UAE’s] departure removes both production weight and institutional credibility, and that’s got to be a concern to Saudi Arabia and others who remain,” says Elaine Dezenski, head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ (FDD) center on economic and financial power. “I think we’re now seeing one of the final nails in the coffin for OPEC. We’re seeing alignment from the UAE towards the U.S., which is, I think, part of a broader economic statecraft.”
Some analysts say there is also a high likelihood that the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC could trigger a domino effect. Other OPEC countries will have seen the news that the UAE will be able to increase their daily production from slightly more than three million barrels a day to five million next year. That gain in production could easily prompt countries such as Iraq to jump ship, as they would then be free to pump as much oil as they can and need rather than be constrained by OPEC quotas.
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Not everyone sees the cartel’s end.
“OPEC+ is not built around noise. It is built around capacity, credibility, and coordination,” Salman Al-Ansari, a Saudi geopolitical analyst, told FOX Business. “On these fronts, the UAE is not among the most decisive players in the group. Politically, this appears less like a major economic rupture and more like a symbolic move to signal leverage and independence. But symbolism does not always translate into influence.”
Al-Ansari doesn’t foresee a collapse of OPEC. “I believe OPEC+ can continue to function and thrive,” he said. “The institution has managed internal differences before, and its strength ultimately depends on disciplined coordination rather than political signaling.”
But there’s an additional aspect to OPEC’s potential downfall.
“Cartels have a long history of working efficiently for a while and then collapsing,” Pete Earle, director of economics and economic freedom at the American Institute for Economic Research, told FOX Business. The reason for that is that members of oil cartels have an incentive to produce more fuel than their OPEC production quota. And, the cheating can ultimately lead to a breakdown of the organization, he said.
There are some things that will be different if OPEC disappears. “I don’t know whether American energy producers, oil producers, will feel happy about a lower oil price,” said Bernard Haykel, a senior fellow at FDD.
That said, major American energy companies are highly innovative at adapting to economic changes. They have done so for many decades, so lower prices might not pose a significant challenge.
Earle also said that while oil prices will come down without OPEC, they will be more volatile, making for a roller-coaster ride for anyone buying gasoline. However, there are ways for energy companies to use sophisticated financial derivatives to smooth some of the volatility.
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Earle said some countries rely heavily on oil revenues, and falling prices might lead to unintended consequences. “Lower, less stable prices that would possibly translate into domestic instability.” He continued, “Iraq and Nigeria would probably be impacted by instability.”
Whatever happens to OPEC, there is some good news on the horizon.
“We’re likely to see lower prices in the future. I’m not talking now or in six months, but let’s say a year from now, once things get back to normal, you’ll see a much lower price because of this UAE decision,” Haykel said.
Flynn, a FOX Business contributor, said, “OPEC is not only on life support, it is dead in the traditional sense. This is no longer your daddy’s OPEC and oil politics have changed forever because of what has happened since Operation Epic Fury. Still, as long as Saudi and Russia, their non-OPEC competitor, stay together, they are still a force that cannot be ignored.
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