Qatar will withdraw from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as of January, the country’s energy minister announced on Monday. 

The Gulf state's energy minister Saad al-Kaabi told a news conference in Doha it wanted to focus efforts on bolstering its dominance in liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and emphasised that the move was not political and not linked to the Saudi-led embargo launched against Qatar in June 2017..

The announcement again throws into question the role of the cartel after needing non-members to push through a production cut in 2016 after prices crashed below $30 a barrel.

It also marks the first time a Mideast nation has left the cartel since its founding in 1960.

In June 2017, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut ties to Qatar in a political dispute that continues to this day. They also launched an economic boycott, stopping Qatar Airways flights from using their airspace, closing off the small country’s sole land border with Saudi Arabia and blocking its ships from using their ports.

OPEC is an international intergovernmental association created by oil producing states to control crude production quotas. OPEC includes Algeria, Angola, Venezuela, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Congo, Kuwait, Qatar, Libya, the UAE, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Equatorial Guinea and Ecuador. Members of the organization control about two thirds of world oil reserves and they account for up to 45 percent of all world production and half of exports.