In the News
Qatar leaves OPEC
4th December 2018
Qatar has announced that they are leaving the OPEC oil cartel and focusing instead on expanding investment and production in natural gas. Qatar has the third largest known natural gas reserves in the world and is easily the biggest producer of liquefied natural gas ahead of Australia and Malaysia.
Qatar is only the 11th largest crude oil producer within OPEC accounting for around 2% of the output of the producer cartel. So their decision to leave OPEC is unlikely to have much impact on OPEC's ability to influence world prices. There is perhaps a wider geo-political significance in Qatar moving further away from some of their neighbours.
Follow the tweets below for some more background reading on the Qatar decision.
Qatar decides to leave OPEC https://t.co/AhySfVMuF7
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 3, 2018
Qatar to withdraw from OPEC in January 2019 - the world's leading oil producing bloc https://t.co/LZhX5JOkGO pic.twitter.com/d13Q2Arkml
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 3, 2018
Qatar — the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas — plans to quit Opec next year after nearly six decades of membership of the oil-producing cartel https://t.co/49PZmwlmYE pic.twitter.com/6XISGJiB6j
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) December 3, 2018
Geoff Riley
Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for over thirty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD conferences in the UK and overseas.
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