KUALA LUMPUR, May 11— The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) decision to leave the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) earlier this month is seen as a move to prepare for a changing world that is increasingly shifting towards alternative and renewable energy sources.
Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Management and Business at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Dr Mohd Iqbal Mohd Noor, said that the UAE may be expecting oil demand to decline by 2050, as many countries are now shifting towards the use of solar and wind energy, as well as electric vehicles.
“UAE may have already foreseen that by 2040 or 2050, oil will no longer be in high demand. So when people are not using much oil anymore, it feels it is better to sell as much as possible now,” he said in the Apa Khabar Malaysia programme on Bernama TV on Monday.
According to him, the Gulf country has the capacity to produce up to five million barrels of oil per day, but OPEC’s quota limits its output to around 3.5 million barrels only.
Mohd Iqbal said the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC, which acts as a “regulator” to ensure prices remain stable through supply control, could make global oil prices less stable and more difficult to predict.
Speaking on the recent surge in prices, he stressed that the main issue at present is not production levels, but geopolitical disruptions caused by the closure of key trade routes such as the Strait of Hormuz, which is affecting global supply chains and logistics.
He said Malaysia needs to prepare for these changes by diversifying alternative energy sources and seeking new shipping routes or suppliers to ensure the country’s energy costs remain under control.
The UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC, OPEC+, and the Organisation of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) took effect on May 1.
