The United Arab Emirates has announced that it’s leaving OPEC, the cartel representing major state-owned oil producers, on May 1.

In an announcement posted on state-owned media, the UAE wrote that the decision “reflects the UAE’s long-term strategic and economic vision and evolving energy profile, including accelerated investment in domestic energy production, and reinforces its commitment to a responsible, reliable, and forward-looking role in global energy markets.”

OPEC includes major state-owned oil producers like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran; the UAE joined the group nearly 60 years ago, just a few years after the cartel was established. As a group, OPEC members set their oil production levels in an attempt to balance oil markets and maintain oil prices high enough to support their national budgetary needs, but not so high that it hurts the economy and cuts into oil demand. (If every country produced as much oil as they possibly could, the rules of supply and demand would send crude oil prices down sharply and reduce their incomes.)