Volatility in the Market

By David L. Goldwyn

David L. Goldwyn is president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, LLC (GGS), an international energy advisory consultancy.  He is Chairman of the Atlantic Council Energy Advisory Board and the co-editor of Energy & Security: Strategies for a World in Transition. Prior to founding Goldwyn Global Strategies, LLC, Goldwyn served as the U.S. State Department's special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs from 2009 to 2011. Goldwyn previously served as assistant secretary of energy for international affairs (1999-2001) and as national security deputy to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson (1997-98). He is a member of the U.S. National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations. 

In November 2014, the thirteen members of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) shocked oil markets by announcing that, in order to “restore market equilibrium,” they would not reduce production to counteract swiftly falling prices. Today, a year and a half later, prices remain less than half their 2014 peaks, and OPEC has still failed to negotiate even a production freeze agreement. 

David Goldwyn, the President of Goldwyn Global Strategies and the Chairman of the Atlantic Council’s Energy Advisory Board, told The Cipher Brief that, what’s really behind OPEC’s (and specifically Saudi Arabia’s) inability to make a deal is a mixture of politics and economics, the combination of which make any future production agreements difficult to negotiate.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

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