Qatar's decision to leave OPEC from the beginning of 2019 was presented as being done to enable it to concentrate on liquefied natural gas (LNG), where it is the world's largest exporter. The energy minister, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi said that as a small oil producer, Qatar had little influence inside OPEC. He denied speculation that the move had been aimed at Saudi Arabia, which has led an economic blockade of Qatar by some of its Arab neighbors since June 2017, though the hostility of the Saudi royal family to the emir of Qatar can hardly have produced an eirenic situation within OPEC as far as the two countries were concerned. It is difficult, however, to see in what way Qatar's continuing membership of OPEC might have affected its LNG business.
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