Recent News

Spain’s Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Fish­ing and Food has reported that olive oil pro­duc­tion reached 1.77 mil­lion tons for the first half of the 2018/19 cam­paign — a record fig­ure.

This marks a 43-per­cent increase for the same period in 2017/18 and 49-per­cent higher than the aver­age yields of the last four cam­paigns.

The 2018/19 cam­paign has been pro­lific in Spain in other aspects as well.

Domes­tic and inter­na­tional sales have already reached 753,300 tons, an 18-per­cent increase from last year’s fig­ures over the same period. Aver­age monthly sales for the first half of the 2018/19 olive cam­paign have reached about 125,550 tons.

Pro­vi­sional data for March also esti­mated that 485,400 tons of olive oil have already been exported, a 24-per­cent increase over last year. March alone had a very pos­i­tive per­for­mance as exports were 50-per­cent greater than those of March 2018.

How­ever, the poten­tial for tar­iffs on Euro­pean Union olive oil exports to the United States could dampen these fig­ures mov­ing for­ward. Last year, Spain exported 35,323 tons of olive oil to the U.S. and many in the sec­tor were hop­ing to increase this mar­ket share in light of poor har­vests in other com­peti­tor coun­tries.

On the domes­tic front, Span­ish olive oil pro­duc­ers increased their sales, hav­ing sold 267,960 tons, which rep­re­sents a nine-per­cent increase over last year’s fig­ures and is three-per­cent higher than the aver­age of the past four years.

Aver­age monthly sales for the domes­tic mar­ket have been 44,650 tons for the first half of the year. This good per­for­mance has led to many pro­duc­ers sell­ing some of their stock, which they expect to increase by 48 per­cent com­pared with last year due to the good har­vest.

Spain is expected to make up 75 per­cent of the Euro­pean Union’s olive pro­duc­tion and 50 per­cent of the global pro­duc­tion this year, com­pen­sat­ing the decreases other top olive pro­duc­ing coun­tries in the Euro­pean Union expe­ri­enced.

Andalu­sia, Castilla La Man­cha and Extremadura were the top three pro­duc­ing provinces in Spain.

Recently, the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion expressed its con­cern for the sig­nif­i­cant decrease of olive oil prices despite a rather sta­ble pro­duc­tion for the 2018/19 olive cam­paign. Due to this, the Com­mis­sion will mon­i­tor the prices of olive oil in Spain and other mem­ber coun­tries.

Although prices in Spain are below aver­age inter­na­tional olive oil rates, they have remained rather sta­ble in the last few weeks.

Pro­duc­tion of table olives increased by four-per­cent in 2018/19 in com­par­i­son to last year’s num­bers, but have expe­ri­enced a slight decrease in sales, due mostly to lower sales in the domes­tic mar­ket.

Total sales of table olives within Spain have gone down three-per­cent with respect to those of last year.

• Diario de Sevilla


• Span­ish Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Fish­ing and Food