Yesterday, during a sectorial roundtable, Spain’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment presented the overall results of the country’s 2014 – 2015 olive oil production season, ending September 30th. The data revealed a decrease in production down 841,700 tons, a 53 percent reduction from the year prior, and 38 percent less than the average of the last four seasons.
Based on provisional September numbers, they estimated that exports during 2014 – 2015 reached 825,700 tons, 25 percent less than the previous production seasons, and 4 percent off the average of the last four before that. Imports, on the other hand, came in at 158,000 tons, based on September’s tentative numbers.
Total olive oil sales went down, as well, though remained relatively high, tallying 1,319,200 tons, a decrease of 19.5 percent from last year, and 6 percent less than the average of the four earlier seasons.
Meanwhile, current remaining olive oil stock has dipped 63 percent from the average of the past four years, and sits at 180,900 tons. This includes 57,700 tons stored at olive mills and another 123,200 tons kept at refineries, packagers and other operators.
The roundtable also discussed the current market over the course of this last month, and how rising olive oil prices have started coming down in anticipation of the harvest to come. Indeed, earlier this week, the government of Andalusia released their official estimates, which predict Spain’s production of olive oil in 2015 – 2016 to rebound, reaching 1.2 million tons.
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