`U.S. Continues to Dominate World Olive Oil Imports - Olive Oil Times

U.S. Continues to Dominate World Olive Oil Imports

By Julie Butler
Jun. 7, 2013 09:48 UTC

The United States docked two in every five tons of olive oil imported glob­ally in the first six months of this sea­son, accord­ing to the lat­est mar­ket newslet­ter from the International Olive Council.

And the huge American mar­ket con­tin­ues to swell — with total imports of olive oil and olive pomace oil for October 2012 – March 2013 in line to rise four per­cent on last sea­son.

The U.S. imported 33,208 tons in March alone, com­pared to 6,592 tons in Brazil — cur­rently the world’s sec­ond biggest non-European olive oil buyer — where imports are up 16 per­cent, and 4,184 tons in Japan, where they’ve grown 29 per­cent.

The Chinese mar­ket, which unloaded 1,766 tons in March, is up 17 per­cent, and there’s been growth of five per­cent each in Canada and Russia but a five per­cent slump in Australia.

Overall, total world imports are expected to expand three per­cent on 2011/12 to reach at least 790,000 tons.

Global pro­duc­tion

The IOC said that due mainly to the 62 per­cent col­lapse in Spain’s pro­duc­tion, total world pro­duc­tion this sea­son is expected to be down a quar­ter on 2011/12’s record 3 .77 mil­lion tons, and the sea­son to end with 45 per­cent less in stocks.

Production is up, how­ever, in Chile, by 30 per­cent, and by 22 per­cent each in Greece and Tunisia.

Global con­sump­tion

World con­sump­tion of 2.95 mil­lion tons is fore­cast for 2012/13, five per­cent less than last sea­son.

The European Union (E.U.) is headed for the biggest drop — an expected over­all decline of 12 per­cent. Individually, con­sump­tion looks poised to fall 15 per­cent in the chief E.U. pro­duc­ing coun­tries — Spain, Italy and Greece — and by 10 per­cent in Portugal, the IOC said.

Turkey is the coun­try where con­sump­tion increases the most among the IOC Members,” it said.

Table olives

Midway through the 2012/13 crop year, table olive imports are up 13 per­cent in Canada, 11 per­cent in Russia, eight per­cent in Australia, seven per­cent in Brazil and one per­cent in the U.S.



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