Oil production reaches 851,000 tonnes, second worst season in a decade

Although the situation is expected to improve by the end of the year and this will bring with it a sharp drop in prices, the olive oil market remains very tense. As the experts predicted, the 23/24 harvest was better than last year’s, but it is still well below the average of the last 10 years and far from the levels needed for prices to return to normal.

Olive oil production in Spain reached 851,000 tonnes, 27.9% higher than the previous season, but still 34.6% below the 10-year average. This is the second lowest production in the last decade, only surpassed by the previous season, when production stood at 665,600 tonnes. This is reflected in the Olive Oil Market Bulletin of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, corresponding to the month of July 2024.

On the other hand, despite the aforementioned improvement in the harvest (still very insufficient), the total Spanish supply (made up of production and stocks) has been lower than that of 2022/23 (1.1 million tonnes), due to the low level of initial stocks, as stocks currently stand at -9.1% below the same month of 2023 with a total of 414,900 tonnes, according to the analysis of Plataforma Tierra, Cajamar’s digital platform for agri-food knowledge.

Regarding the forecasts for the 2024/2025 season, this analysis points to a greater balance between supply and demand, and a consequent relaxation of the selling price:

‘In Spain, the rains in spring and the crop’s dry spell point to a recovery in production with expectations of around 1.2-1.3 million tonnes at the expense of what happens in summer and spring, which could cause these estimates to be revised downwards’, he affirms.