Saudi Arabia quits OPEC — the cartel dissolves after 65 years

Saudi Arabia formally withdrew from OPEC, and the organization voted to dissolve within hours. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman called the cartel “no longer fit for the settlement landscape we now operate in.” The move follows the UAE’s exit 11 days ago and leaves the remaining members — Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, Algeria, and others — without the two producers that made OPEC relevant. The cartel was founded in Baghdad in 1960 to give producing nations leverage over Western oil companies. It ended because its members could not agree on what currency to sell oil in. OPEC’s final communique was one sentence: “The organization ceases operations effective immediately.” Sixty-five years of production quotas, price wars, and geopolitical leverage — ended not by a market crash, but by a settlement crisis.