Summer Heat Trims Andalusian Olive Oil Output

Summary

Andalusia, the world’s largest olive oil pro­duc­ing region, is fore­casted to see a slight decline in pro­duc­tion to 1.08 mil­lion met­ric tons in the 2025/26 crop year, with the main rea­son being an extremely hot and dry sum­mer. Despite this, Spanish olive oil pro­duc­tion over­all is expected to reach 1.5 to 1.55 mil­lion met­ric tons for the upcom­ing har­vest, with Andalusian author­i­ties also report­ing an increase in organic olive oil pro­duc­tion and a slight rise in table olive pro­duc­tion.

Olive oil pro­duc­tion in Andalusia, the world’s largest pro­duc­ing region, is fore­casted to fall slightly to 1.08 mil­lion met­ric tons in the 2025/26 crop year. 

According to esti­mates released by the regional gov­ern­ment, Andalusian olive oil pro­duc­tion is antic­i­pated to be 5.5 per­cent lower than the 1.14 mil­lion tons pro­duced in 2024/25. Still, it will exceed the five-year aver­age by nearly 20 per­cent.

Overall, experts fore­cast that Spanish olive oil pro­duc­tion will reach 1.5 to 1.55 mil­lion met­ric tons for the com­ing har­vest.

Despite the plen­ti­ful spring rains, the Andalusian regional gov­ern­ment cited the south­ern autonomous community’s extremely hot and dry sum­mer as the main rea­son for the decline in pro­duc­tion com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. 

“Spring rain­fall has reduced the water stress that affected the olive trees, con­tribut­ing to their recov­ery and pro­mot­ing the irri­ga­tion of the olive grove,” the Andalusian regional gov­ern­ment wrote in the report. 

“The mild tem­per­a­tures dur­ing the flow­er­ing period favored the blos­som­ing and fruit set con­di­tions. However, the exces­sive heat of June affected the trees’ via­bil­ity, caus­ing some of the fruit to fall,” they added.

Regional author­i­ties warned that the evo­lu­tion of the har­vest will be deter­mined by the amount of rain that falls in com­ing weeks, with non-irri­gated olive groves already demon­strat­ing signs of water stress, which could ​“affect both pro­duc­tion and fat yield.”

Some of the most sig­nif­i­cant pro­duc­tion declines are expected in Jaén. Andalusia’s lead­ing olive-grow­ing province is fore­casted to yield 475,000 tons of olive oil, a 15 per­cent decline com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. 

Neighboring Córdoba, the region’s sec­ond-largest pro­duc­ing province, is expect­ing yields to fall by 7.5 per­cent to 269,100 tons. Meanwhile, Seville is expected to see pro­duc­tion climb by more than 16 per­cent to 130,000 tons.

With an expected yield of 117,200 tons, the province of Granada is expected to expe­ri­ence a slight decline of 5.5 per­cent. 

Elsewhere in the region, Málaga’s pro­duc­tion is antic­i­pated to rise by 55 per­cent to 54,600 tons, yields in Cádiz will nearly dou­ble to 16,400 tons, pro­duc­tion in Huelva will increase to 11,100 tons, and Almería will expe­ri­ence a sig­nif­i­cant rise to 7,500 tons.

The Andalusian regional gov­ern­ment fur­ther high­lighted the increase in organic olive oil pro­duc­tion, which is expected to reach 34,670 tons, rep­re­sent­ing a 3.4 per­cent increase com­pared to the 2024/25 period. More than half of the region’s organic olive oil comes from Córdoba.

Unlike olive oil pro­duc­tion, Andalusian author­i­ties antic­i­pate a slight increase in the region’s table olive pro­duc­tion, ris­ing 0.3 per­cent to 483,000 tons. 

Sevilla remained the lead­ing pro­ducer of table olives in the region, respon­si­ble for nearly 70 per­cent of the total pro­duc­tion.

Andalusian author­i­ties fur­ther indi­cated that Hojiblanca remains the lead­ing table olive vari­ety, rep­re­sent­ing 60 per­cent of the total, fol­lowed by Manzanilla and Gordal.

Away from pro­duc­tion, Andalusian author­i­ties also pub­lished data on the regional olive oil mar­ket.

Starting stocks for the 2025/26 crop year across all of Spain stood at 278,000 tons as of the end of September 2025, nearly 50 per­cent higher than they were at the same point in the pre­vi­ous year.

As a result of higher stocks, olive oil prices at ori­gin in Andalusia sit at €4.28 per kilo­gram of extra vir­gin at the start of the cam­paign, com­pared to the aver­age of €8.27 dur­ing the pre­vi­ous crop year.

Exports for the 2024/25 crop year are also con­tin­u­ing to recover after con­sec­u­tive poor har­vests in 2022/23 and 2024/25 saw them drop to their low­est lev­els in a decade.

Andalusian author­i­ties said the region exported 621,401 tons of olive oil to 133 coun­tries in the first nine months of the crop year (from October through June), val­ued at €3.14 bil­lion.

Italy, the United States, Portugal and France were the lead­ing des­ti­na­tions by both value and vol­ume.

Imports over the same period dropped to 123,451 tons val­ued at €541 mil­lion.