`World Olive Oil Production Drops by a Quarter, Council Predicts - Olive Oil Times
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World Olive Oil Production Drops by a Quarter, Council Predicts

By Julie Butler
Mar. 11, 2013 02:15 UTC

The International Olive Council’s (IOC) fore­cast for world olive oil pro­duc­tion in 2012/13 has been pared down 8 per­cent to 2.5 mil­lion tons amid evi­dence the Spanish har­vest will be even lower than expected.

Last November the IOC pre­dicted 2.71 mil­lion tons in world pro­duc­tion this sea­son (October-September), down from 3.4 mil­lion in 2011/12, and that Spain’s har­vest, dec­i­mated by adverse weather, would be down 49 per­cent on the pre­vi­ous crop year, to just 820,000 tons.

But in its February newslet­ter, pub­lished on Friday, the IOC acknowl­edged that Spanish olive oil pro­duc­tion in the first four months of 2012/13 was already down 62 per­cent, accord­ing to Spain’s Olive Oil Agency.

As the world’s lead­ing pro­ducer, Spain has a big impact on the global total, thus the 2012/13 esti­mates for the European Union (E.U.) and world out­put have been revised to 1.52 and 2.5 mil­lion tons respec­tively.

Morocco and Tunisia are enjoy­ing good har­vests, but pro­duc­tion in Italy and Greece will be lower than oper­a­tors tipped late last year, the IOC said.

Consumption

The coun­cil also acknowl­edged that, accord­ing to recent fig­ures from the Spanish agri­cul­ture min­istry, ​“in the cur­rent cri­sis set­ting olive oil con­sump­tion by Spanish house­holds dropped 14 per­cent in the last four months of 2012 while con­sumer prices rose by an aver­age 10 per­cent.”

However, it did not revise its global con­sump­tion fore­cast for this year of 3.1 mil­lion tons, down from 3.2 mil­lion in 2010/11.

Imports up a third in Japan, a quar­ter in Australia

Meanwhile, imports of olive oil and olive pomace oil grew 35 per­cent in Japan, 24 per­cent in Australia, 23 per­cent in Brazil, 13 per­cent in Russia, 10 per­cent in China, 8 per­cent in the United States and 3 per­cent in Canada, in the first quar­ter of 2012/13 crop year (October – December).

Spain’s exports inched up 2 per­cent in non‑E.U. coun­tries — chiefly in China, Brazil, Japan and India — in October and November, but it sold less to E.U. coun­tries.

Figures for the same two months show a major 119 per­cent rise in extra E.U. imports (from the rest of the world into the E.U.) to nearly 24,400 tons. Imports from Tunisia (17,807 tons) and Morocco (5,014 tons) ​“made their mark” on this increase, the IOC said, not­ing Morocco signed a free trade agree­ment with the E.U. in October.

Discrepancy in intra‑E.U. trade fig­ures

Theoretically they should be equal, but the breach is widen­ing between the imports and exports totals for olive oil and olive pomace oil within the E.U.

The IOC said intra‑E.U. imports (which are mainly vir­gin grade) for October and November fell 7 per­cent on the pre­vi­ous sea­son, from 175,985 to 164,559 tons, while exports between E.U. coun­tries slid 15 per­cent.

“Notably, the gap between intra-EU import and export fig­ures has gone up from 10,455 to 24,033 tons for these first two months. Although there are always dis­crep­an­cies in inter­na­tional trade fig­ures, it will be nec­es­sary to track how this gap evolves over the com­ing months,” it said.

Producer prices had been below costs

Producer prices in Spain have under­gone ​“a rea­son­able, log­i­cal increase.”

“Olive Oil Agency sur­veys have in fact revealed that they have been exces­sively low in recent sea­sons and have not man­aged to cover pro­duc­tion costs,” the IOC said.

Prices have also gone up in Italy and Greece. In the for­mer, ex-mill prices for extra vir­gin olive oil rose from €2.61/kg in the last week of November to €3.19/kg in the last week of February — growth of 35 per­cent on the same period a sea­son ago.

And in Greece, prices gained 34 per­cent, climb­ing from €2.04/kg in last week of December to €2.46/kg in the last week of February.

The gap between the price of refined olive oil and extra vir­gin olive oil was about €0.29/kg in Spain and €0.36/kg in Italy.

United States trade fig­ures

The IOC also included analy­sis of the U.S. mar­ket, which ​“holds top posi­tion in the olive oil and table olive import rank­ing”, and where it has run cam­paigns to pro­mote olive oil and olive con­sump­tion which ​“have had a very sig­nif­i­cant impact.”

In 2011/12, the U.S imported just over 317,000 tons of olive oil, up 8.6 per­cent on the pre­vi­ous sea­son.

About 65 per­cent of these imports were vir­gin grade, of which Italy (103,250t) and Spain (21,260t) were the main pre-packed (<18kg) sup­pli­ers and Spain (27,140t) and Tunisia (19,424t) the main bulk sup­pli­ers.

Italy was by far the main non-bulk sup­plier of refined olive oil (40,880t) and edi­ble olive pomace oils (3,540t), while Spain (29,000t) and Tunisia (11,400t) led bulk sup­plies in refined, and Spain dom­i­nated in bulk edi­ble pomace (8,500t).

Incidentally, Canada and the Dominican Republic , which do not pro­duce olive oil, were sup­pli­ers of edi­ble pomace oil: Canada in the bulk cat­e­gory with 443 tons and the Dominican Republic third, after Italy and Spain, in packed, though with a mere 236 tons.

World trade in table olives

Imports of table olives were up 16 per­cent in Canada, 13 per­cent in Australia, 8 per­cent in Brazil and 1 per­cent each in the U.S. and Russia in the first three months of the 2012/13 (October – December 2012).


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