On April 28, the UAE announced it was exiting OPEC and its broader OPEC+ alliance, effective May 1. This is a clean break from the oil cartel it had been part of since 1967. The announcement sent oil futures swinging, analysts scrambling, and investors asking a simple question: what happens next? To answer that, we need to start at the beginning Understanding OPEC OPEC, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, was born in 1960 when five oil-rich nations (Saudi A