`World Poised to Make Over 3M Tons of Olive Oil - Olive Oil Times

World Poised to Make Over 3M Tons of Olive Oil

By Julie Butler
Mar. 24, 2014 12:01 UTC
Jaén, Spain

While the International Olive Council recently trimmed its esti­mate for world olive oil pro­duc­tion this sea­son from nearly 3.1 to 3.05 mil­lion tons, GEA Westfalia Separator Ibérica has upped its from 2.76 to 3.3 mil­lion tons, which would set a new record.

In 2012/13, the world pro­duced slightly more than 2.4 mil­lion tons of olive oil, accord­ing to the IOC’s pro­vi­sional fig­ures, largely due to a dis­as­trous year for Spanish pro­duc­tion, which totaled just 616,000 tons.

But this sea­son the IOC expects Spain to bounce back to nearly 1.6 mil­lion tons, which is 58,800 tons more than it fore­cast back in October but equal to the Andalusian regional government’s fore­cast of the same time, and GEA Westfalia Separator Ibérica tips 1.7 mil­lion tons, up from the 1.35 mil­lion it pre­dicted five months ago. In the first four months of this sea­son – October to January – Spain had already processed more than 1.2 mil­lion tons, accord­ing to the country’s Information and Food Control Agency,

The IOC said in its February newslet­ter it had reduced its esti­mates accord­ing to the lat­est batch of fig­ures received from some IOC mem­ber coun­tries.” Apart from the increased fore­cast for Spain, the out­look is also for higher than ini­tially expected out­put in Portugal, reach­ing 85,000 tons, and no change in the esti­mate of 450,000 tons for Italy, it said.

Lower fore­casts for Greece, Turkey

Meanwhile, down­ward revi­sions apply to the pro­jec­tions for Greece and Turkey. Last October, Greece fore­saw a steep decrease in pro­duc­tion to a level of 230,000 tons due to the severe drought that sum­mer; how­ever, the lat­est data points to an even lower ton­nage of 157,500 tons, down 56 per­cent on the pre­vi­ous sea­son, the IOC said. In com­par­i­son, Greece’s aver­age pro­duc­tion for the last four crop years was 318,400 tons.

Production in Turkey is expected to total 130, 000 tons, 50,000 tons less than first esti­mated, while else­where in IOC mem­ber coun­tries pro­duc­tion appears to be hold­ing to ini­tial fig­ures, the IOC said.

According to Olimerca, GEA Westfalia Separator Ibérica also expects increased pro­duc­tion in Portugal, which is tipped to dou­ble its total from last sea­son. (IOC data shows Portugal pro­duced nearly 60,000 tons in 2012/13.) Likewise, rises are pre­dicted for Australia. and also coun­tries such as Chile and Morocco, which in the last seven years have seen their pro­duc­tion increase seven and five-fold respec­tively.”

Turkey is in line for a 60 per­cent drop in out­put, and Turkey and Palestine have had prob­lems due to the phe­nom­e­non known in Spanish as vecería — a nat­ural alter­na­tion between high and low yield har­vests.


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