Big Oil is at risk of flaring its profit bonanza. Exxon Mobil and Chevron posted their highest quarterly cash flow since the days of $100 crude as higher prices helped them squeeze more out of each barrel pumped. Texas drills are humming and areas like Guyana are booming. But price rises may not last and investors are demanding greater returns. The $340 billion Exxon pumped 57 percent more out of West Texas’ Permian Basin in the quarter compared with the same period last year, and continues to make new discoveries offshore in Guyana. Overall production fell, but each barrel pumped

The price of crude oil is volatile. Our first chart shows the price of a barrel of Brent crude since the early 1970s, adjusted for inflation. In real terms, oil prices, which had been broadly stable for more than a decade, rose by a factor of six between the late 1990s and the late 2000s, only to plummet as the global financial crisis hit, rebound as the recovery began, and fall sharply again through 2014 and 2015 as investors rightly became concerned by the pace of China’s slowdown. At the time of writing, Brent crude is trading around $75 a

2014 prices for the U.S. and global oil benchmarks (West Texas Intermediate Crude and Brent Crude) peaked near the end of June and then headed into decline.

The strong U.S. dollar means that U.S. exports seem more expensive outside the U.S., and that has led to a fall in demand for U.S. goods, including agricultural products.