OPEC and OPEC+ are now weaker than they’ve ever been

With the UAEUAE decision to leave OPEC, the cartel is in something of a structural crisis. Its share of the market will drop significantly from 37% to about 28%, not far above the U.S. at 20%. We might recall that Qatar ended its own membership in 2019 to pursue its role as a key global gas exporter. But OPEC is dominantly an organization of oil producers, and with the loss of its third largest producer—and the shift of the UAE into a likely competitor—it can only be enfeebled.

OPEC+ was created in 2016 after U.S. shale producers flooded world supply causing a major price collapse. OPEC needed help to bring prices back up and signed an agreement with Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and several others so that the total marked share under control was 59%.

A problem has been Russia’s support for the IRGC, which the Gulf Arab states have long considered a threat in its development of missile and drone capabilities, as well as violent proxy groups across the region. If this has made for a rather troubled dynamic within OPEC+, the new war has made it considerably more difficult.

By providing Iran “intelligence, data, experts, and components” for its attacks on Gulf Arab states, Putin has shifted his position from a broker between Tehran and Riyadh to a de facto enemy of these countries. How this may play out isn’t yet clear, but we shouldn’t be surprised to see OPEC+ on very shaky knees unless the UAE decides to join.

Former Patterns of Energy Geopolitics No Longer Apply

These realities are part of a larger shift in the geopolitics of 21^st century energy. Closing the Hormuz Strait, in fact, solidifies a highly consequential pattern that, while not entirely new, has greatly intensified.

In the past, resource-rich states did not often utilize their supplies as weapons of international conflict. There are precedents, of course, especially in wartime. The U.S. halted oil exports to Japan in 1941, Egypt blocked the Suez Canal in 1956, and, most famously, Arab members of OPEC cut exports in 1973-74 to punish the U.S. and other nations for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

Yet for most of the post-WWII era, states used less aggressive means to influence outcomes. OPEC adopted an overall policy of price moderation and stabilization—not letting prices go too low, for obvious reasons, and not so high as to motivate importers to reduce demand. The lesson was evident: after the 1973 and 1979 oil crises, wealthy nations diversified their energy sources and installed policies like raising vehicle efficiency standards and enhancing public transport.

A different version of stabilization was thought to involve Russia and the EU prior to the Ukraine invasion. Each side relied heavily on the other—EU on Russia for roughly 40% of its oil and gas, Moscow on Europe for over 45% of its exports. Neither, presumably, would risk the relationship of codependency, as both derived much benefit from it.

But this presumption was wrong. Indeed, it was wrong even from the beginning in Russia’s case. And it has become increasingly mistaken with each passing decade in the new century.

The Shift in 21st Century: Energy as a Hard Power Weapon

States are now regularly using energy not merely as tools of foreign policy but as hard power weapons, deployed to inflict serious economic and even physical harm. It is a weapon, moreover, that has been used by exporters and importers, though not equally.

This means energy in various forms—not only oil and gas, but other resources like minerals required for energy technologies, as well as the technologies themselves. It also includes geography, particularly regarding marine transport routes, whose control is now a key geopolitical energy concern.

Examples are rife and diverse. We might start with Russia, as it has been a consistent practitioner since the early 2000s. This involved cutting gas supply to Ukraine (and, due to pipeline transit, to Europe) when Kyiv pursued pro-Western policies, such as the 2004 Orange Revolution. Most of the cut-offs were in winter (January), increasing the hard power impact.

In Moscow’s subsequent invasion and war on Ukraine, it has consistently used its missiles and drones to attack grid infrastructure. Since 2024, the Kremlin has intensified its efforts to degrade the electricity system to where people lack key necessities of life, including water, heat, and medical care. In return, the Ukrainians have successfully and ever more systematically targeted Russian refineries, storage facilities, pipelines, and export terminals. By upgrading its own drone and missile capabilities, Ukraine has been able to repeatedly hit Russia where it hurts most, in its oil refining, production, and transport.

On the importer side, the EU has halted a large majority of its oil and gas imports from Russia, with plans to phase out all of them by 2027. This has rendered thousands of miles of pipelines inactive, with little prospect they will be used again. In response, the Kremlin has pursued a hybrid war against Europe seeking to destabilize government and public security by sabotaging grid components, undersea cables, NATO pipelines, logistics nodes, and by launching cyberattacks on other critical infrastructure.

China has been another country to weaponize policies related to energy. This includes an apparent test of curtailing rare earth exports to Japan during a flare-up in the long-running dispute over the Senkaku Islands. More recently, export restrictions on critical minerals have been repeatedly used against Western nations, and in early 2025, China suspended nearly all trade in seven important rare earth metals. Its claim to have done this because these elements were “dual use”—civilian and military—highlights the point about weaponization.

In the same vein are Trump’s use of high tariffs against relevant components and materials. Chinese-made lithium-ion batteries, battery storage systems, solar manufacturing equipment are examples in this case.

But the most consequential example of hard power energy policy is in the Persian Gulf region. This includes Iran’s coupled aerial assaults on oil and gas infrastructure and blockading of the Hormuz Strait, as well as the U.S. blockade and Trump’s overt threats to bomb Iran’s power plants. The energy weapon remains at the core of this conflict, with profound impacts on the global economy.

The Pattern is Clear—As a Core Necessity, Energy is a Highly Effective

The 21st century has thus seen energy weaponization become more systematic, more diverse in its instruments, and more deeply embedded in strategy than ever before. The older forms of weaponization were primarily about supply control over oil. What's new is expansion into the full architecture of the energy system: natural gas and minerals, technologies of energy conversion, the infrastructure that delivers it, strategic restrictions on its trade, and the digital systems that manage it.

Four drivers — national security, climate change, the geopolitics of the Energy Transition, and elevated global awareness about the core link between energy, prosperity, and economic development—are mutually reinforcing in this context. These are not the only factors involved, but they are essential to the new norm of using energy as a munition of international conflict in a multipolar world.