Qatar To Officially Withdraw From OPEC On Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st January, 2019) Qatar will cease to be a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on January 1, nearly a month after it sent an official notification to the cartel expressing its wish to pull out and focus on its liquefied natural gas production.

The decision was announced back on December 3. It came amid the ongoing diplomatic and economic blockade imposed on the country by its Persian Gulf neighbors and several Arab states � the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, among others, � who accused Doha of supporting terrorism and interfering in their internal affairs, something that Qatar has strongly refuted.

Doha, however, stressed that its decision to leave the organization was not politically motivated and was actually a technical move, guided by what Qatari Energy Minister Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi called a "desire to strengthen the country's position as a reliable global energy supplier and also by Qatari oil production levels."

Qatar, which is the world's largest LNG producer, joined OPEC in 1961.